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In other news; I have three hedgehogs in my garden right now. One large, two small.. ish.

Hawesy very similar here though a bit more cloud this evening. Down by the river this afternoon.

A decent day, especially by the poor standards of this month. Sunny spells and pleasant enough in the sun. Minimum was 0c, max 12c.

TwisterGirl81 'though to not see a wisp of cloud somewhere in this country for a whole DAY would take a small miracle' I've just corrected your typo

Arctic day up temps mostly around 5-7C but very cold northerly biting. In the few sunny intervals felt nice enough out of the wind. Managed first cut of grass albeit in thick coat and hat. Quite happen with hitter. Old in the winter but this constant cold is getting tad wearing. Was going to say at least it’s dry but I hear rain now on the roof window…

Cloudy morning, mainly sunny afternoon which combined with light winds felt very nice even though max today was 10.5c. Showers of rain this evening and 5c, Met sticking to their guns all day that these showers will turn sleety around dawn. If it wasn't the fact that its useable light outside until 21:30 now, you'd think it was still mid March...

sunny_vale My optimism for the year was extinguished once we got another late season SSW. Those things are the deathknell for Spring & guarantee endless gloom. To think people were saying, "oh it won't be that bad this time!" or "we could be on the good side of the SSW!" well guys, it was even worse than last years SSW lol. Hope this isn't gonna be an every year thing now otherwise Spring is a thing of the past! I'm normally fairly optimistic & I was back in January but yeah, this is the worst period of weather I've ever lived through, can't lie!

If only it was ..... On this occasion its a warm easterly ..

A bit of rain recently 0.4 mm from another little feature that WRF picked up well.

2.9c raining ️ so much for dry until Sunday oh well… how are we still in this rut? picked up a bug in Londonford mixed with hay Fever lovely jubbly At least managed a good walk yesterday, lots of gardening and odd jobs sorted.. including stopping crows nesting in loft through broken vent cover… by crawling in loft space and blocking vent to 5cm

Heard the rain on the dormer roof when I got up this morning and although it looks to have passed through now, it’s left everything damp so nowhere near as good a start to yesterday and Tuesday. doesn’t look like a bad day coming up though, maybe a few showers but compared to the conditions we’ve endured for much of this spring, passable. just need the warmer air to push up ahead of Saturdays system and for that to remain to our south, then we may manage to get a half decent few days.

They really should release the actual figures. The raw numbers that are displayed on their own website plus others like meteociel and weather online are wrong and misleading. Still don’t understand why they don’t, considering they show the actual ranges on the anomaly maps.

Mapantz aww hope you leave some treats for them

18z NAM pretty much the same as the 12z just an absolutely classic look for a significant tornado outbreak across Kansas and Oklahoma. Soundings from Oklahoma Soundings from Kansas Only one major fail mode is really possible with this kind of setup, that being morning convection. Lets see what our cams show over the next 3 days. Here's the area forecast discussion from the national weather services local office in Wichita, Kansas "Saturday has the potential to bring significant severe weather to the area. Of course there is plenty of time for the forecast to change and there does remain some degree of uncertainty particularly in storm mode. A sfc low in the vicinity of SW KS is progged to deepen and move east/northeast potentially around central/south central KS by peak heating. Moderate to strong instability (2500-4000 J/kg) will combine with strong flow (60kts+ bulks shear), nicely curved hodographs/strong LL SRH, and strong 3CAPE (200j/kg). Any storm that can remain discrete or even semi-discrete in this type of environment will pose significant hazards from strong to potentially violent tornadoes, large to very large (2-3+ inch) hail, and damaging wind gusts." Wonder if a day 3 moderate will be issued, maybe not cause of morning convection but still a possibility.

Imagine being someone who is overjoyed by grey & wet! Would it be something like this? Dean Gray, the drizzle lover- "This has been the BEST 14 months I have ever lived through on this planet!!!! This stunning spell that started in March 2023 with those utterly stunning grey slate skies & that tantalising rain hammering against my skin for days on end has left me in somewhat of a euphoric daze. We had a disgusting blip late May & June 2023 with that absolutely vile sunshine & worryingly dry conditions that could have brought forward extinction of the human race but I decided to take matters into my own hands. I drew a pentagram, got some candles, 100 dead Spring rabbits & a photo of the sun with a knife stomped through it on a dead tree trunk. I performed this sacrifice to Beelzebub & in return I begged him for the UK weather to be like March 2023 forever!!!" "My wish was granted. One of the greatest months in UK Summer history occurred with the utterly perfect July 2023 & August, despite a few annoying blips of filthy sun mid month, kept a mainly dull theme. The 1st half of September was absolutely unacceptable though & I thundered back over to Beelzebub in a hurricane of rage & demanded a return to the weather I WANT. ITS ALL ABOUT ME I screamed in his face. He told me I need to up my sacrifice & so Immediately I unclenched my fists & rushed off to gather the items for my next sacrifice. Upon digging up my expired grandparents & placing them onto the tree trunk surrounded once again by the pentagram & candles, topped with the sun photo, this time with FIVE knives through it, I anticipated my desire to come true." "The weather changed almost immediately after mid month & then I spat out my caramel latte when a few days of 25c & sun appeared in early October....REALLY!!!!!! I charged back over to Beelzebub but he stopped me in panic & exclaimed that the man over there was upset at the poor weather & also started a sacrifice to him & of course I ahem...ended his journey on earth there & then. Ever since, I've had it all my way hahahahaha. Grey, wet, grey, wet, grey, wet, it's all because of me! 2023 was meant to be the start of a Mediterranean climate in the UK but I alone managed to change it to a slightly warmer version of the Faroe Islands!!!" "Nowadays I just dance in the streets in my red lingerie in a blur of complete euphoric bliss just knowing, this is our climate forever now! If anyone even dares go to Beelzebub with a sacrifice to change things, there will be dire, DIRE consequences. You have been warned. I love my life!" Yes I was bored & yes I am weird

Stunning while waiting for my flight to Gatwick

Mike Poole thanks Mike I'm afraid I'll breach every NW filter imaginable if I type what I really think of the last 6 months of "weather " locally. As always, in unsettled phases the NW cops for the majority of Atlantic systems but this period has been beyond the pale. Like many others I'm desperate for some warmth and sunshine but I'm struggling to see anything resembling this on the 00z NWP . Late season SSW is disastrous for Spring so I always get a feeling of dread when we see SSW's in late Winter. One year we'll see a major SSW in November and get the benefit HL blocking when most of us want to see it,ala Dec/Jan NOT April/May..

What I’m finding more astonishing than how poor and cold our weather is, is that there’s not a single day on the 00Z where temperatures anywhere in the UK at any given time are above 18C… and that goes out till the 10th of May, 3 weeks from the start of meteorological summer.

55.0 hrs of sunshine here in the first 24 days of April, 56% of average. It's still possible it could be the dullest April on record ( since 2000) as April 2000 recorded 75.5 hrs and currently holds the record.

B87 looks like a big problem is even the months with surplus sun also had surplus rainfall, and the big 2 (July and August) were both low on sun and high on rain. There’s been no real respite even in the supposedly better months we had. And yeah this year is somehow worse so far because we haven’t even had February to help (completely misplaced dry month anyway)! I’m usually such an optimist so seeing that backs up my currently opposing sentiments hahaha

raz.org.rain Not in summer though. Most deserts will still be 25-30c overnight. They can often get frost in winter. Las Vegas has a record low of -13c, which is the same as Heathrow. Albuquerque has colder average minimums that London from October until early April, (including an average January low of -3.1c which is colder than any part of the UK) and a record low of -27c. On the other hand, some desert climates are always warm, eg Djibouti has an average low of 21c in January and 31c in July.

B87 that figure would get your sunshine stats back on the right track though to not see a wisp of cloud somewhere in this country for a whole month would take a small miracle though I’m surprised it hasn’t happened or that the sunshine monthly record has stood for over a century, crazy, must be one of the oldest records yet to fall? I thought this country was slowly meant to be getting sunnier

I recorded 304 hours of sunshine in May 2020. That's very close to what I have recorded so far this year.

James1979 Yes. Pretty sure it was 14.5c on Xmas day in my area in 2023. Struggling to get above 10c for the last few days here lol, and with the wind chill, it's been a "feels like less than 10c" situation. Just madness. Ahh, Britain - one of the only places where all that separates a day in summer from a day in winter is the daylight hours. Indeed, the max/high on the summer solstice in June 2021 was actually cooler in parts of the country than the winter solstice of the December 6 months prior. A feat that very few climates that have "seasons" can make claim to.

WYorksWeather I agree with @summer blizzardon this to be honest with you. Hovmoller plots are probably a better proxy to look at than ensembles. We need to be careful with what we use and interpret. if we can get some westerly interia going then it shouldn't be too bad at all. I also supported the very sensible post by @Mike Pooleearlier as well and think that clusters should never be dismissed. I feel also that the ECMWF 0Z ensemble mean was encouraging today, not necessarily for heatwaves but shall we say for a bit of a drying trend with a mid Atlantic ridge.

Excellent as that would mean I will only be 0.1C out with my guess. Earlier in the month, it was looking like I could be amiss by as much as 2C!

We had a hail shower about 8.15 as i was driving to work, short and sharp, snow/sleet showers up at cropton forest first thing according to reports, it really needs to warm up, log burner lit again tonight with it being 2°c outside currently.

mike57 Yes, that's what I heard. We had a hail storm on the moors at 9am and it then stayed dry but bitterly cold until 3pm when it unexpectedly rained really hard. The sun came out later and it has actually been a nice evening, with the cold wind dropping right off on the NY coast. Alas, it seems we may be getting showers from a feature from the North Sea early tomorrow which may stick around until late morning. I do not normally say it, but I am actually glad that I shall be heading back to Cheshire later tomorrow.

markyo absolutely, 2°c outside, log burner roaring away at the end of April, superb weather....NOT

TwisterGirl81 And the same for here... 2023 January 113% rainfall 120% sunshine February 9% rainfall 111% sunshine March 238% rainfall 54% sunshine April 156% rainfall 93% sunshine May 84% rainfall 107% sunshine June 120% rainfall 137% sunshine July 134% rainfall 78% sunshine August 100% rainfall 95% sunshine September 120% rainfall 117% sunshine October 179% rainfall 107% sunshine November 118% rainfall 114% sunshine December 134% rainfall 41% sunshine 2024 January 86% rainfall 126% sunshine February 223% rainfall 67% sunshine March 219% rainfall 82% sunshine

Ok well overall in 2023 Exeter had 112% of its annual rainfall and 96% of its sunshine (January,, May and June really boosted otherwise poor sunshine amounts) I have to be honest I’m actually shocked at the results…the reality felt somewhat worse that the above figure suggests 2023 January 82% rainfall 128% sunshine February 13% rainfall 87% sunshine March 165% rainfall 42% sunshine April 107% rainfall 79% sunshine May 85% rainfall 127% sunshine June 25% rainfall 135% sunshine July 205% rainfall 74% sunshine August 87% rainfall 88% sunshine September 199% rainfall 97% sunshine October 124% rainfall 97% sunshine November 115% rainfall 107% sunshine December 138% rainfall 73% sunshine 2024 January 58% rainfall 126% sunshine February 187% rainfall 51% sunshine March 188% rainfall 81% sunshine As for April we are about 20mm away from our April rainfall average which I expect we’ll receive more than that this weekend, some websites predict us 30mm+ this weekend alone. As for sunshine we have 60 hours of sunshine to get by next week to reach April average which given the forecast I just don’t see us reaching so I think it’ll be a wetter and duller month overall but I wouldn’t imagine huge percentage deficit, probably moderately so….so I guess that’s a positive given how some months have been. Lets hope May and Summer really makes us forget this wet and dull period

WillinGlossop Yes, its an impressive covering for so late but not a great fan of snowfall at this time of year. Just want some warm sunshine now but so much more appealing is a continental climate with its more extreme variety of weather. Hope you lot get some decent warmth and sunshine soon ? C

Keldas. Glenridding Yearly visit to see the Bluebells. But we’re a week or so too early The Legendary Lung buster start up to Helvellyn. If you know you know. For a change we descended. Classic Grizedale. Memories of Nethermost Pike ahead in full winter conditions many a time. St Sunday to the left. Chill N NE breeze. Decent in The Sun when it broke. A good day.

NCAR updraft helicity for sat, Kansas and Oklahoma stands out with Kansas having a less discrete mode. Oklahoma has 2 prominent discrete storm tracks. As posted by @Eagle Eye the 12z NAM has a very, very potent environment, we'll see if the trend sticks but sat could genuinely be the highest end threat the plains has had for many years. Soundings from Oklahoma Soundings from Kansas

To highlight Spring sometimes resulting in better weather in the west compared to the east (often due to the increased likelihood of northern blocking at this time of year, and easterly winds that favour the west more than the east), I checked the average sunshine totals for April versus July. In April, many western areas average a very similar amount of sunshine to the south and east: By mid Summer, the south and east averages significantly more sunshine than the north and west: You can also see this for Spring as a whole compared to Summer as a whole: This is largely down to high pressure being far more frequently centred to the north/NW or west of the UK during Spring than at any other time of year, which will always favours sheltered western and NW'ern areas. Add in a late season SSW that increases the chances of northern blocking even more, and this pattern probably becomes even more accentuated.

Metwatch Yes. I think sunshine is also playing a big part. It's been really, really dull for April, especially recently (outside of some sun over the weekend, but with no warmth though). Bird and insect life seems properly subdued for nearly May, also.

SunSean worst part is that some are dead set on having this theme continue through summer too.

TwisterGirl81 Since last June!

midlandsun We.need a hot long summer to get over the last 13 months and recharge for next Autumn, Autumn and Autumn before the next Summer!

CryoraptorA303 the dullness has been notable every month since I don’t know when

Yet another dull drizzly cloudy day here, and that wind....fooking bugger off!!! This country is a complete miserable hellhole.

Ben Sainsbury Me too man! Should've gone now. Oh well, hopefully I can get something from May 6-14!

Saturday with a positively tilted trough ejecting across the southern parts of the great plains with a full on dryline and with 65°F+ dewpoint. Very much a potentially classic setup here, but there's still a lot that could go wrong. That notch in Northern Kansas would probably be the safest bet, but you'd typically chase Oklahoma on a plains day given previous events, even one last year when the plains wasn't that active if I remember correctly. Northern Kansas Oklahoma

0z deterministic runs, out to Wed 1 May (day 7) Could we see that warmer easterly right at the beginning of May? Both flavours of ECM plus the UKMO seem to think it's possible... 0z ensemble means, out to Thu 9 May (day 15) The ECM mean wants to support its op on the idea of warmer air coming in briefly from the east right at the beginning of May. Beyond that we have clear signs of anticyclonic activity in our vicinity in early May, but with an equally clear risk that this will remain too far to our west or southwest for us to warm up. Why did it feel so darn cold when I woke up this morning?! Current temperature (colours) and wind (lines) at 850hPa (left) and at the surface (right), screenshotted from https://earth.nullschool.net/ at something like 10am this morning.

Dont get me wrong Saturday still has fail modes, especially regarding morning convection but this 500mb chart could seriously be in a meteorology textbook page for what a significant tornado outbreak trough in the plains looks like. Strong belt of flow rounding the base and ejecting into the area at peak heating, negative tilt, divergence aloft. Recent trends have slightly slowed the trough ejection and further amplified the jetstreak. This is important, a faster ejection=less time between morning convection and our main event. Comparing past significant tornado events with this type of trough ejection the one that sticks out to me as looking the most similar is May 24th 2011, will we reach that ceiling? Im not convinced at the moment but the potential is there. Nam comes into range in about 2 hours interesting to see what it shows. Two other failure modes i can think of are lingering cloud cover and storms firing too early to make use of LLJ, also not 100% with lapse rates but lets see what CAMS do. CSU very potent though Ben Sainsbury I still think late may and early june has very good potential, big cape storms that only require a gust of wind to surge the RFD and drop a photogenic cone. Good luck out there!

I'm seeing a lot of well-experienced forecasters/chasers becoming very concerned about the upcoming prospects from Thursday onwards. Fortunately on night shifts so will be able to follow the entire event. If only I'd decided to go chasing out in the States a month earlier

Im not surprised by the spcs upgrade for thursday although it is very rare for them to upgrade the day 3 risk. A lot of shorter range models have the dryline firing. Any discrete supercell that can sustain itself will be capable of golfball-baseball sized hail, 70+ mph straight line wind gusts and strong-violent tornadoes. I also think the spcs decision to upgrade was partly due to the csu machine learning showing the equivalent of a high risk for the area, never seen that before! 21z RAP very potent, two dryline bulges one in Texas panhandle and another in Northern Kansas. Soundings from Texas panhandle Soundings from Northern Kansas Wonder if we see a 30% upgrade for fri and sat tomorrow morning, looking at models at the min both days certainly meet the threshold.

If we dont see downtrends in the next few days saturday is going to be a problem, a significant trough ejection with strong flow rounding the base, negative tilt and ejection right at peak heating. At the minute everything synoptically speaking looks very favourable for a high end severe weather outbreak. A sub 997mb low is expected to develop with a strong (50-60 knot) low level jet. The existence of subtle confluence bands was also pointed out on twitter. In regimes with less forcing these bands can help give just enough lift for storms to fire off allowing for discrete convection. I do think its important to urge some caution though, differences do still exist in models. Look at the ukmets depiction, much less favourable with trough way behind. Weve had the wheels fall off the train before (especially our last setup) so lets see what the NAM and other short range models show when they get into range tomorrow/Thursday. Overall though, thursday, Friday and Saturday all are looking like good chase days with severe weather with all hazards possible. RRFS for thursday Nam 3km also for thurs NAM for friday SPC now upgraded Thursdays risk to a day 3 enhanced. "Severe thunderstorms are likely from late Thursday afternoon into Thursday night across parts of the central and southern Great Plains. Very large hail, severe wind gusts, and strong tornadoes will all be possible. Guidance continues to suggest strong buoyancy will be in place ahead of a negatively tilted shortwave trough ejecting across the southern High Plains. General forecast expressed in the previous outlook remains valid, but confidence in an area of greater severe-weather potential has become more apparent with the most recent guidance. Late afternoon development is anticipated across the TX Panhandle, with these storms quickly becoming severe and capable of large to very large hail up to 3" in diameter. Low-level moisture may be later to arrive in west-central/southwest KS, delaying convective initiation to a few hours later than farther south. Large to very large hail is anticipated with initial development across west-central/southwest KS as well. In both of these areas, storms are expected to move east-northeastward off the dryline, encountering strengthening low-level southerly flow and environment that is increasingly favorable for tornadoes. Low-level shear will continue to strengthening into the early evening, and the overall environment supports the potential for strong to intense tornadoes if a discrete mode can be maintained." Interestingly, CSU now predicting a very small area equivalent to a high risk for Thurs, i think it will be very conditional due to cap but a significant severe event is possible if storms can fire.

reef it's all so confusing. I did a comparison between raw figures and met office climate summary maps. They definitely tweak the numbers upwards for the maps.