BlueSkies_do_I_see

It comes down to sunshine (higher the better), wind speed (<10 mph preferably) and rainfall (lower the better), rather than high temperatures. So whichever year had more sunshine and less rainfall gets my vote. By the sound of things 2020, but 2018 was my favourite May-July of all time.

snowray it's hard to believe, until you read about it. The Great Snowfall – 25 April 1908 – Historic Southampton HISTORICSOUTHAMPTON.CO.UK

To fall from 11.39C on the 14th to 9.7C at month's end would require a cool down of 1.7C, a feat only achieved twice in 1778 and 1815. Interesting times! Thanks for those stats Roger.

Derecho it wouldn't take a huge twist to drop into the high 9s C then if we picked up an easterly towards the end of the month perhaps? Glad I stuck with 9.6C. It may not be too far out

Thanks for posting this. Quite frankly I am surprised.. 2021 was incredible! I remember 2020 clearly but not 2021. But it surpassed it somehow.

I remember April 2011 well, as I had just become a father for the first time a couple of weeks earlier. It was indeed a warm, sunny and pleasant month. The cloth nappies dried well on the line! It must have finished very strongly judging by Roger's running CET chart above showing 11.08 avg for the first 13 days and finish of 11.9C. Which was sunniest April on record? I'm thinking 2007/2011/2015/2020 would feature high up in the charts..

Don 11.9C is safe. I would bet my mortgage on it. The bigger question is if we are going to finish with 11.1C? That is the temperature that would beat 2007 to make 2024 the warmest Jan-Apr on record.

I'll take a 10.5C CET finish, if it means drier..

I agree with the comments about settled snow on the south of the country. It's going to take perfect synoptics now to deliver. Anything else will be falling snow or cold rain. The recent snow in SW England was an example of perfect synoptics. The intensity of that precipitation helped deliver the snow to ground level. I also agree with the idea of some unsettled damp summers and hot ones. It's going to come down to which side of the kinked jet stream we get stuck on. Even last year with our unsettled summer delivered a notably warm June and Sept period. One thing moving forward that is certain. We will see heat records broken almost every year. We've already seen a heat record in Jan (19.9C), Feb come within 0.1C of the record CET, and numerous date records set since, including yesterday's highest Min CET. Will the summer be hot? Absolutely. The devil is in the detail. Hot and stormy, hot and dry? Who knows, but I guarantee heat!

reef Some of those targets look more achievable than others. 13.9C or higher in May for example, has only ever been achieved twice: 1848 (13.9C) and 1833 (15.1C). If we even approach the 13.9C figure next month, I will start to believe an annual 11.5C is possible. Even the sun soaked May 2018 only checked out at 13.3C.

WYorksWeather The reason I make these bold predictions about heat records is, to use gambling parlance , we are playing with a loaded dice. I don't expect to reach 12C either this year. The regime we are in right now with all of these wet and cloudy nights leads to very mild 9am/9pm temperatures between Oct-Apr, but we need to lose the low pressure systems after that to get the high CET values. You can see the high pressure starting to build now to our south and if the jet stream migrates northward, we are at some point going to tap into the heat. I spent the afternoon at the allotment today and it amazed me to see how quickly the grass dried in the warm, windy conditions. We could do with more days like today. I'm not a great fan of wind, but I'm even less a fan of muddy, boggy ground. I will be surprised if we don't get another 11C CET year after the start we have had. It would take a brave person to bet against it now. As your analysis shows, if the mild continues much longer, it becomes odds on.

Looking like a gradual cool down come mid month. I think somewhere in the low to mid 10s C would be prime right now. There does look to be some cooler nights ahead, but nothing approaching a frost. A 10.5C finish would tie 2020 and 1943 that currently occupy 4th/5th places. A 10.4C would place it 6th. A temperature finish not yet achieved.

Andy Bown I have to wear wellies to reach the compost bins at the bottom of my garden. Never had to do that before in all the years I have lived here. It's repeatedly flooded this winter/spring. The grass is now almost entirely moss.

Thanks Reef. We won't be far away from that 11.1C after the first part of the month I think. Some really mild days coming up. Personally, I think the month will finish north of that judging by the GFS 6Z and the general model trends. Practically all the weather is coming from the south / south west as far as the forecast goes out to. Couple it with cloud, wind and rain, I can't see where any notable cold will be coming from.

kold weather I think I calculated 9.5C to secure that title. I may be mistaken though.