kold weather

Alderc 2.0 not only that but economically it makes absolutely 0 sense. In that sense longer evenings are going to be FAR more beneficially economically then keeping shorter evenings/earlier mornings. That's is the only metric that will be used in deciding what to do, you can guarantee that.

I suspect we've just become accustomed to the milder temperatures. Bar mid Jsnuary we've basically had 4-5 months of CET averaging somewhere between 6-8c. So despite mild temperatures at the moment, I think we probably aren't feeling the benefits of staying above average. A similar thing happened in summer of 2018. Literally acclimatised to the warm temperatures so by the end 28c really wasn't that warm, despite it being objectively warm.

Already a pretty high CET in a period where the months averages are only going one way. Looks like above 61-90 already is basically guaranteed. Above longer term average also is highly likely. What do we need for the warmest first 4 months ever? I'm guessing 2007 is still the king on that metric? Jan 24 was much cooler than 07 but both Feb and Mar were decently warmer in 24.

B87 my local area had by far the lowest 30 day sunshine levels ever recorded in mid June-mid July 2021. Absurd. Legitimately it would have been a below average February... (I think it had 58hrs over a 28 day period!!)

damianslaw I mean it's the 16th wettest spring ever recorded. I grant you it was very much of two halves but its an undeniably wet spring overall on the basis of the ewp over the 3 spring months. Even May 18 was not *that* dry, ended up at 81% of average. Dry but not excessively so as an average. The summer is clearly a different story!

damianslaw even 2018 has that pattern, though obviously by May we shifted conclusively away into the drier pattern that held until the end of July. I agree that nothing can really be gleamed by looking just at Spring. I'll admit the portents aren't great on the enso department if we do snap into a rapid developing la nina, however its also not the absolute master of summer either...

Should the 00z suite be correct we will probably already be near average for the Spring by mid month. Nothing short of an exceptional dry spell in the 2nd half stops this from being another above average season for rainfall. Onto summer we go...

The models are real rough for the first 10 days, you've got at least 3-4 fairly significant lows and a fee other weak features. On top of already sodden land suggests pretty high risk of flooding in places probe to it. The only slight benefit is stronger evaporation vs mid winter, but that's not going to overcome already waterlogged grounds and daily rainfall. Hopefully there is a pot of gold waiting beyond this string of lows.

Ewp will almost certainly be above 100mm by the end of today. Another very wet month due to a very wet end.

Weather-history Absurdly wet period. I've got to imagine we are closing in on a 12 month rolling record. I had hoped we would be well behind Mar 23 but even though it is behind its by a modest amount. A wetter than normal May-June might well seal the deal on not only the wettest jul-Jun but the wettest rolling 12 months. Especiàlly if April morphs into another real wet one.

Summer8906 You would have thought a rapid shift in the enso state combined with final warming of the pv is going to totally shift this pattern. The fear I have is it just shift us into another pretty meh pattern. Rapidly intensifying la nina summers tend to be on the poorer end of the scale, especially in the North. The south at least has more riding chances typically. As I said in the other thread, the 2nd half of 94 and first 3 months of 95 were pretty rough going yet that shifted gears into an exceptional summer. So it absolutely can and does happen (and equally it can shift the other way from dry to wet) With all that being said, yes this spell absolutely is in exceptional territory now. I think 1872 had every month above average? It was absurdly wet regardless. Also as wet as things are, it's not yet in the same ballpark as the first part of 2014.

danm one of the best examples would be the back half of 1994 and first 3 months of 95 vs the summer of 1995. Indeed the whole 94 is fairly similar to 23 with generally wet with a drier period centered around early summer vs M/J in 23. I'm pretty sure had this place been around in Mar 95 similar topics would have come up. We ended up having a classic summer that year. Sometimes patterns do just flip from one end to the other. With that being said, I suspect this summer is going to feature sustained wet spells particularly in the 2nd half and particularly further north.

Summerlover2006 it will end up being considerably wet on average yes. Not as much as last year but probably 30-50% wetter than normal. April looks to be fairly wet to start as well...though hopefully we can get a shift at some point!

markyo We've had a record wet 18 month period. I don't think you can get much more 'extreme' in our climate, and the records back that up. Some places are running a very large surplus now of rainfall, so much so that even 3-4 months of 0 rain will still have those areas in a long term surplus over say 24 months, We could do with a drier couple of months over the 2nd half of spring, doesn't have to be too warm, just dry. Of course that long a dry spell would still cause its own problems with surface level drying out rapidly (as it'd almost certainly be with some heat at some point) but just making a point. Edit - estimated return period for this level of wet between 80-120 years...

CryoraptorA303 Funnily enough I'm seeing far more similarities at least at the moment to April 2021 in terms of a strong developing -ve NAO signature showing up in early April. With that being said as long as we can hold either signal and it doesn't just limply decay like it has done several times already this winter (and with the usual PV decay anyways) I do think the upcoming 30-45 days will look considerably different, albeit I think with a greater risk on the colder side with short warming bursts thrown in as well should the pattern shift too far west. Its just a shame that typical La Nina summers after mod-strong el Nino don't have a very good track record at all, could easily see a shift back into a more zonal set-up again this summer. The hope will be should that happen we can get enough ridging in that we just end up with one of the historic meh summers (though even in those, there are some good spells for the south it has to be said at times) rather than one of the downright stinkers. Then we simply have the odds, we are already running at record levels over 18 months, I think at some point even if its part of a longer decadal pattern your still going to get 1-3 month periods that snap out of that, and apart from Jan-Feb 23 and May-Jun 23 we've not seen anything like that since September 22. We are well overdue for a balancing out now....even adjusting for CC rainfall inflation so to speak.

Just under the March average on the EWP now, so another above average mo nth is locked in. At one point it looked like a modest above average but the models are turning increasingly unsettled again. Starting to look like another 100mm month is possible. With that we may not be drastically behind March 23 (20-40mm?). It makes the rolling 12 month average record very possible given May-June last year were fairly below average and if just one I'd those months in 24 is wet it will probably seal the deal.

Alderc 2.0 starting to get a whiff of the end of March 23 on these models with relentless fronts/troughs and pretty windy as well. Might be another month above 100mm...

Cheshire Freeze historically rapidly changing El nino - La Nina have ranged from meh summers, to downright awful. of course there aren't too many years that fit this bill within semi-modern times so we don't know the fill range of possibilities. we could well have a good one, it just historically the odds arent great, albeit from a small range of years. one thing that does stand out is there is often a north-south divide at times.

SunnyG to be fair the models actually weren't that warm for the south, it was reserved for Midlands on pretty much all models which is broadly what happened. Today and tomorrow should be better for temperatures, though with considerable cloud around. with that being said, actually got decent sunshine here for the moment.

March 23 rainfall upto this point is more or less identical (yesterday was 58mm vs 60mm from 23) though 23 got increasingly wet towards the end of the month and raced up.

danm I think that does back up my showers idea as to why we are seeing more days rather frontal rain, which in theory shouldn't lead to an increase in sunshine. (If anything stronger frontal rain would lead to larger cloud canopy I'd have thought? Less frontal rain vs showers though would do the trick for that combination though. Obviously this is probably a vast simplification!

Cheshire Freeze 1mm of rainfall really isn't that much from showers, a modest shower will probably get you close to that level. Thunder maybe decreasing but you sure as heck don't need a thunderstorm for that... Fronts I don't think will play much of a part since the vast majority will contribute over 1mm to begin with and thise drizzly fronts often don't even give 0.5mm yet alone 1mm when looking at the actual statistics.

danm fascinating, so there is also an increase in rain days, albeit not too intense of a change. Probably down to showers just being a little more intense on average leading to a marginal increase in days getting over 1mm would be my guess.

Interestingly on the rainfall front looking a the UK as a whole, since 1931 7 out of the wettest 10 years across the UK as a whole average have been since 2000. Considering thats over 90 years of records, to have 70% of them be in a 23 year period is pretty telling in itself...and I think a little high to be just coincidence.

I've just had a look at how rough the mid summer period was down here in 2021. For those of you in the north, you obviously had a good summer. Down here, I locally had a 28 day spell with just 58hrs of sunshine between June-July. For context, that would be a below average *February*. Compounded by getting roughly 300-350% of normal monthly rainfall and maxes being 1.5c below normal. It might just be the worst ever summer period I've personally ever experienced. Whilst August was also dreadful, in contrast it didn't feel quite as bad as that period. At least early June and mid July were decent which saved it from being quite as rough as the likes of 07/12, despite that dreadful period. Just felt like a rant on that summer, and to help the northerners here understand just how rough it actually was down here.