LetItSnow!

B87 I disagree entirely. Until about the 20th it was running warmer than an average April and there were many days in the low to mid teens Celsius including some days in the upper teens. No denying the month was springlike to me even if it was dull and wet.

B87 Good to counteract the February days that felt like April! I see the El Niño pattern of chilly weather appearing in April is finally rearing its head. Another parallel to the ever growing similarities to 1998. Not an entirely dissimilar pattern to then either as late March 1998 was exceptionally mild with freakishly warm minima akin to early April this year, but then turned very unsettled afterwards then ushered in a colder period afterwards. Only difference then was the cold was more pronounced than this year will be. I honestly would not be surprised to forecast May 2024 as a mostly anticyclonic month from this analogue alone and I don’t even believe in year matching analogues. I think May 2024 will be mostly anticyclonic but with a few pronounced wet spells (probably thundery) meaning the month has near normal rainfall. I think it’ll be one of those months that is remembered fondly but not as a classic, not like May 2020, May 2018 or May 1989, but like May 2001, May 2008, May 2016 etc.

25C will very likely be seen in May. I think the only Mays this century to fail it are 2013 and 2015. Though you never know.

Scorcher It’ll all depend on preferences and location. If areas in the east get stuck with cloud, showers and temperatures in the upper single digits to low teens then it may feel exceptionally bad. In your location and further west, perhaps not as much. Standard spring fare, but not want people are wanting to see given where we’ve been. On a local note, even the past few days have seen showers and the unstable N/NE type flow being picked up on could affect the southeast disproportionately. I wonder if April will turn out yet another really wet month for the southeast in particular.

I'm not quite sure I agree with this. No one is claiming an April 1981 redux but more that the signal for the next 7 to 10 days is looking fairly chilly and likely to feature some chilly nights, so it'll be below average, particularly in the east. Most posters know the strength of the sun is enough to get temperatures in double digits even with cool uppers. If you're in the far north and west it'll likely be better, but if we get cloudy NE/E winds with cold uppers then quite a bit of the country from the Midlands east could struggle with maximum temperatures if there's a lot of cloud and nagging sea breezes. No hyperbole going on imo.

A brief overview of the GFS 0z. By the weekend we're under high pressure but with rather chilly uppers, particularly in the far east, so while even by day it may feel a tad nippy it will sure be quite chilly by night and the start of the frost risk is already apparent. What's of interest is that by Monday the 22nd we see the high pressure far north enough to establish a north-easterly flow over much of England and Wales, more substantially so than the previous run. I imagine this will bring very raw, cloudy and quite showery conditions so in the south the long awaited dry spell may end up being rather soggy. Some notably chilly uppers on this run with about -5 and even some isolated patches down to about -7C on the east coast. I feel like this could be a particularly cloudy and showery affair due to warmer than average SST anomalies in the North Sea at the moment. The raw, showery theme is maintained up to Wednesday the 24th with north-easterly winds continuing though uppers moderating. The previous run had a trough over and to the east of the country which was far more unsettled whereas this, while still unsettled, wouldn't be quite as so, so there's some question as to how much an effect low pressure will have at this time though winds are likely to be from a northerly quadrant. I'd go up to day ten itself but for some reason I can't, all the charts seem to be stuck on midnight on the 26th thereafter. So, what does it show? It looks like a persistent pattern of chilly weather will likely take place in the second half of April. Will it be exceptionally cold and with buckets of snow? Very unlikely. But anyone saying it's a mild outlook is letting their bias overlook the forecast, end of. It looks to me a very normal pattern that you'd expect to see in any given April and what would be very normal 40 years ago, but coming after such an exceptionally mild first half to April it's going to be a shock. Those who were hoping for the first signs of summer will have to wait, and in some areas it may not even be overly dry, though out west (especially you, Ireland!) there may be more shelter. Personally I'm delighted to see such normal, benign synoptics after months of bloated heights to our south. April 2024 is looking like a month that will be remembered for two very different halves, not unlike April 1995 which was similarly exceptionally mild before switching to a cool, quite northerly second-half.

Saw this rainbow captured on the A42 just as it merges into the M1 on the March 2023 imagery.

Really strange month as it began and ended warm but with a cold middle. A month of notable yo-yo-ing in temperature.

Perhaps my musings of a similar temperature pattern to April 1995 weren’t in vain after all as this month could very much be one of two halves. Those temperature graphs haven’t shown prolonged below normal temperatures since January or perhaps even before then! Ever the irony that it’s coming as we rapidly start to lengthen the days and spring gets going.

Anomaly maps (using average maxima) June 2002 July 2002 August 2002 Summer 2002 Stats suggest it was a very dull summer even when it turned warm in August. That dullness probably stopped it from being notably cool due to mild nighttime minima as even by the 1961-1990 average temperatures in the west struggled. This east/west split can be explained by persistent Scandinavian heights that gave them a very hot summer (August 2002 was exceptionally hot there which ironically a year later they would miss out on most of the August 2003 heatwave). 2002 perhaps an example of how blocking to our east isn’t a guarantee of a good summer if the link with the Azores fails to link. We were on the very periphery and explains the warm August. Must have been quite a miserable, dank summer for the most part with such poor sunshine totals.

Interesting question is where we go after the northwesterlies. A sustained cool(er) spell thereafter could give us a mild but mostly unexceptional CET in the 9s perhaps but another flare up could send us marching back to the 11s. Quite exciting.

Today was more “April like” than many recent days with a cool feel but a lot of sunshine. This is no dig and just a personal opinion but I think perceptions of normalcy are rapidly changing. It’s somewhat like the phenomena of people who’ll remark a certain decade as having fine summers in their memory but really they weren’t all that great. It’s not the same but definitely our perceptions of what is normal, particularly the younger, are very skewed, and I say that as someone born in 2001! Ponderings on the summer usually end up having a lot of personal opinion mixed in. Some users not wanting to hear about the prospects of a poor summer, some the same but with a hot summer. Probably a mixture of conditions with the usual threat of our new African plumes. A part of me thinks that another classic is more unlikely only due to the fact that 2022 was the last and that is relatively short a time ago. Really good ones tend to be spaced out by around 5 years give or take, though the die is not evenly loaded as we know. There are also some who may not think a summer like 2007 is possible anymore (not just for 2024 but in general) but as we saw last year, extended spells of low pressure can occur in the summer and I expect a sister of 2007/2012 will rear its head very soon, even if it weren’t as cool (Though see the first 20-25 days of July 2020 for a recent example of what would have been a chilly July) and with more moisture in the atmosphere it’s very possible that when it does come it may break the 1912 record.

Quite funny because this month stands out to me as at the end of the month we took a family holiday down to Cornwall in which I can only describe as the worst holiday weather I’ve ever had. I think we arrived on the 27th. From memory the drive was just non-stop grey and depressing. By the time we arrived in the area (Hayle) the sky was very dark and the rain was torrential. Every day had menacing skies and many nights were kept awake by the rain lashing against the caravan roof. I think I remember reading there was some local flooding at that time but I’m not sure. It was literally the worst place in the country to be as it was exceptionally wet there. If the weather wasn’t bad enough then it was compacted by the fact a family member passed away during the holiday and it was cancelled and we went back home on the 30th. one of the few times a childhood holiday was ever ruined by bad weather actually as most were very nice, even in relatively poor months!

Summer8906 Late March and the 1st had 10C uppers and late March had seen near record level temperatures, so in June I’d imagine the equivalent would be uppers around 15C which still would be present on the 1st which is why I think in the south in that synoptic pattern the temperature would be somewhere around 27-31C

B87 Interesting question so this is my attempt to answer it with the best of my knowledge. The temperature guesses are mostly for England. The end of March spell with comparitive anomaly for the end of May and the synoptics would have likely produced a couple days in the low 30s, probably the 30-33C region, maybe challenging the record. The 1st of June would have been a transitional day with hot air still over the south so down there probably another day in the high 20s/low 30s but a cold front moving S/SW within the high. The 2nd would have been a cooler and fresher day though probably some residual warmth in the mid 20s. Probably not much in the way of rain with that front and just quite cloudy. The 3rd to the 8th wouldn't have been a complete horror show. The 3rd and 4th probably would have been mostly pleasant with temperatures widely in the high teens/low 20s and sunny spells with some cool nights. The northerly push would have seen unusually cool air so I imagine the weather front would lead to some impressive convection so some big storms rumbling southward. I think there would have been snow in the far north on high ground. Widely nights would have been very chilly and some local air frost wouldn't be out of the question, definitely single digits for most if not all. Days, depends on cloud etc but probably low to mid teens for most though London may have been in the 17-19C range with sunny spells. The 9th to the 12th probably would have been very thundery but unusually cool with a northerly flow but flabby troughs around the place. I imagine temperatures in the teens with the 11th probably seeing widespread thunderstorms breaking out, especially across the SE due to weak pressure from a trough to our SE. A very common 1980s summer set up - cool and violenty thundery. The 13th to the 18th would have seen the high pressure lead to warm days but probably some cold nights at first with any leftover cool air so local ground frost for sure and single digit minima, but with the June sunshine under an anticyclone temperatures would be in the low 20s quite quickly but with nights remaining cool. The 19th to the 26th would turn very warm, maybe even fairly hot as uppers increased and the flow turned south-easterly. There may have been some rogue thunderstorms in the far south-west and temperatures would probably climb at least into the upper 20s, particularly on the 23rd, 24th and 25th. The 27th to the 30th would have turned thundery as a weak trough developed over the country as lower heights pushed north, so a proper 1980s style thundery breakdown. Probably lots of severe thunderstorms on the 27th and 28th making way for a cool and very cloudy closing days with weak north-easterlies and perhaps more showers and storms but more scattered. No doubt would have been cooler than average even by the 1961-1990 average and I imagine still with a bigger anomaly by night. I do think the month would have likely reached 30C+ either on the 1st or between the 23rd to 25th, but probably only like 30-31C with an outside chance of just like 28-29C. Sorry if off topic but it was a fascinating concept to me lmao.

To be fair there does look to be a nagging easterly breeze. The nights, definitely, though recent Mays have had chilly nights at times. 2020 definitely did. 2018 also had some, as late as the 20th locally (I wasn't in London at the time, but NW Kent). 2021, 2019, 2016 definitely did. Infact I recorded an air frost on the 1st of May, 2016. May 1993 was a hot one on the continent Very easterly month by the looks of it (SLP anomaly)

While spring growth is on the topic, here's some random images I pulled from the spring of 1986 which was very cold! The first picture on the left was taken on the 20th of April and the second picture on the right was taken on the 1st of May. Still looked like winter!

B87 I can only speak for my own experience but I have lived in this location for a couple of winters now and the advancement is ahead of even 2022 which was similarly mild. And I've lived in south-east all my life and the only time I can remember a similar year for growth was 2017 which had very advanced growth We had this discussion before but 2024 is the first time I have seen the very first leaves begin to bud in the first half of February. It has been an exceptional spell of above average temperatures that has persisted almost non-stop since September 2023 and nature is definitely responding to that which is undeniable.

richie3846 I've been saying that since February. My park behind my apartment really started to come to life at the start of February with blossom, daffodils and even buds appear in that month. Temperature anomalies seem to have been similar both by day and night and I imagine the frost-free conditions down here have really aided the growth. I feel like in a strange way the mildness has killed the spring a little bit. It doesn't feel very springlike. The blossoms and the daffodils and the early spring flowers are already mostly gone so we've gone back to a temporary gray state. It feels more like a transition from winter straight to summer (yes, I know that's what spring is but you know what I mean). I'm no expert on trees and such but I also think the persistent well above normal temperatures late last year have also affected things. We had barely any winter weather, just summer that lasted til mid October then only about 2 weeks of winter in mid-February (I'm only speaking for my local area as I know it wasn't as anomalously mild up north during the autumn and winter compared to down here). Basically there's been no winter re-charge. Hate to think of the effects that could have. If we have a frosty spell mid-April then it would probably bring more frosts than the whole of winter! B87 Funny because when I look at that picture I notice the green poking out more than the grey lol. I can see quite a few well budded trees in the landscape.

Scorcher Yeah, I think there's a definite underplaying of the above average temperatures at play here. There are a couple trees (including some ash richie384) that are already in full leaf and a lot are about 25-50% there. There is no possible way they could be behind due to how mild it has been. I expect a further rapid explosion of growth to continue. I'll have to get out there and take some pictures.

Scorcher I know that for a fact because i’m 2018 until about the 16th of April there was barely any vegetation locally but then a couple days in the 20s exploded things into life. It’s all it takes. I’m surprised anyone would think vegetation isn’t ahead of the curve compared to average due to the fact it has been running almost non-stop well above average since January 21st. It’s funny to think that some years gone by this is what things would have looked like in early May. May 2021 definitely had a quite bare look to it though even that wasn’t as bare as it could have been due to the second half of February and the second half of March being warm at times.

Goes to show the local variation. A lot of trees locally are doing quite well around here. Advanced leaves on the street off this one as well. Helping with removing the grey feel.

Pretty much as I thought it would be, a very August 2019 feeling day. Windy but warm. Just another example of the modern rubbish synoptics that plague us so often. If the malevolently grey feel of 2024 continues I hope it at least protects us from any of those hot spells you’re on about.

raz.org.rain To be fair, early April was always looking to have a very south-westerly influence with the low pressure systems. I don’t recall thinking or people saying it was going to be particularly cool this week.

Do bear in mind that the EWP can hide regional variation. A great example is the summer of 2021 which in the EWP records was slightly drier than average but a very wet summer in the south-east. The Met Office used to have anomaly maps going all the way to the beginning of their UK wide records just like the maps we have today, but they seemingly have been removed from their site and it’s a shame. Wetter than average summers between 1969-2006; 1971, 1974, 1980, 1982, 1985, 1987, 1988, 1992, 1997, 1999, 2004.