Simo

Very much depends on what part of Europe you're comparing them to. London's summers temperature-wise are pretty similar the majority of years to Berlin, Warsaw, Prague and Moscow, with maybe marginally less sunshine, very similar to Paris only a couple of degrees cooler and with actually less rain, and on average 2-4 degrees cooler than much of western and central Europe north of Italy. I wouldn't call that "very lackluster" in comparison. Obviously if you're comparing them to those of southern France, the Iberian Penninsula, Italy and the Balkans, then your point is valid.

Just check out this screenshot I captured on my phone: So does that mean we officially have a new record for April? Still I find that quite hard to believe, given around 2 pm I checked all the typical hotspots in and around Europe (or those that tend to have extreme temperatures whenever we have a heatwave in western Europe) and none of them were registering 30C or over, and I don't think there has ever been a time when any place in the UK has been the hottest in Europe. EDIT: It's not showing for some reason. You'll just have to take my word for it that at 15:27 on my iPhone Weather app, 30C in Wembley was recorded.

Hi, My post count was set to zero on Friday night after I re-signed in after a long absence from posting. The problem I signed back in using my email address thinking the site would automatically recall my user name (think it's SimonR2) but it's just displaying the first letters of my email address. I cannot change my display name in my profile either. Please help me get back my user name back, thanks!

Yes that was pretty dismal, as was 1986 (April wasn't so bad because although very cold we had some fine sunny weather during the first half in the Lakes) but my point is I don't remember such as an extended sunless spell as the one hopefully just ended, not just in spring but in any season (save maybe a few Novembers, 1985 in particular).

Depends what parts of Canada you're talking about, but I think Toronto (which I think is the hottest Canadian city in the summer) has summers comparable to Budapest, or Vienna during a good summer (2015 excepted). Pretty bearable I'd say - for me, the long winters would be more of a deterrent, and I'm pretty sure the big cities would have AC.

Much better here, both in London and in Huddersfield where I was for the afternoon, maybe only a few actual degrees warmer but it's amazing what a difference a bit of sunshine can make! After last year's spring anything is possible - a good few more weeks of this and even just one May heatwave will make this spring at least salvageable, similar to the second half of summer 2016 and the first couple of weeks of September that year. BTW how do I change my username to the one I signed up with? I signed up in April 2011 (I've been mostly a lurker) but my post count was reset last night to zero and and my username is simply showing the first four letters of my email address (which I used to sign back in, naturally assuming that the site would automatically recall my actual username).

This has got to be the dreariest spring I can remember in my lifetime. For over a fortnight (and I live in London!) apart from one sunny day and one warm day when it got up to 16C (respectively 6 and 7 April) it's just been cold, dull and wet day after day with no sign of any improvement and the parks and gardens are still bogs. The last week there's been no sunshine at all, save one brief pale glimpse Tuesday afternoon. People mentioned the 80s springs and April 2012, but the latter while not great actually had over 140 hours of sunshine (the way this month is going reaching triple figures will be a miracle) and during the former the Aprils were generally not bad, if sometimes on the cold side - certainly don't remember any bad spells anything like as prolonged as this one. Anyone with more meteorological knowledge have any idea what is causing this stubborn refusal to yield the sun, at least in SE England (apparently the Lakes had much better weather during the period mentioned)?