Scorcher

Neilsouth Even though it hasn't been blazing sunshine so far, it has been a 'warm' start to the month relative to average. And that is about to be turned up a notch over the next few days.

We missed a great opportunity in 2008 to beat 1833 and certainly to record a 14C+ May. Seems like there may be another opportunity this year- especially if the latest GFS run is anything to go by.

WYorksWeather Wow the ECM was truly shocking for today- miles too low in this area too. Perhaps because it overcooked the precipitation in some areas? It's stayed completely dry here today despite the Met Office and others saying rain was almost certain this afternoon. I too have noticed how accurate the UKV has been with the surface temps recently so I will be putting my trust in it more from now on.

LetItSnow! The fax charts are clear though and I find them a good indicator of whether there will be weather fronts at play. And the Met Office definitely aren't on board with the GFS this morning. Looks great from midweek onwards on my local forecast.

The Met Office website (notoriously Conservative with temperatures a few days out) is showing 22C for this area on Friday, meanwhile the GFS comes up with this: Comical really in that setup. Something has to give.

Alderc 2.0 The GFS has really flipped this morning in terms of its temperature predictions at the surface for Wednesday to Friday- seems quite strange to me to be honest. It's showing max temps 2 or 3C lower here than it was yesterday which seems odd as not a lot has changed on the pressure charts for midweek onwards. Looking at the Fax charts for the week ahead the UK is pretty much clear of weather fronts all week (apart from northern Scotland at times).

Penrith Snow Wednesday to Sunday (at least) is not 'shortlived'. Sometimes I think I must be looking at a different set of charts to certain others. Day 9 is well into FI so not sure why you're emphasising that... The ensembles continue to show a prolonged period of above average temperatures.

reef Yes the maxima have been just as impressive here as the minima. But as you say more the consistency rather than anything excessively warm. Cold nights have been few and far between since the beginning of March but so have cold days.

damianslaw Depends on how May goes...we're not even a fifth of the way through the month yet. A great May would soon erase memories of the dull March and April for many.

Rain All Night Yes I was going to make the point about May 2018- on the face of it it wasn't an outstanding month looking at the charts through the month. High pressure came and went and was generally fairly weak until the last week. Here we had an excellent (and extremely sunny) month despite it not being high pressure dominated until the last week or so.

Rain All Night It's an ensemble mean- it doesn't mean it's definitely going to happen. I think people jump to conclusions by focusing on the mean when the mean is simply a middle ground between the more settled and less settled scenarios. The means shift all the time anyway and aren't very reliable more than 5 days out. Only about 10 days ago the ensemble mean was showing prolonged below average temperatures and within 2 days it had flipped to above average 850 hPa temps.

cheese You can almost sense the excitement from some when they see a hint that things might be going wrong.

Alderc 2.0 Potential question marks about Tuesday looking at the fax charts but I can't see rain being an issue after that at all.

Alderc 2.0 The Met Office- who are notoriously conservative with cloud amounts (and temperatures)- clearly don't agree with your assertion. For this area at least. Where are you getting your info from? I will say though that I am slightly disappointed to see the high looking less robust than it did a couple of days ago.

Not as good from the ECM to be honest. Hopefully an outlier. The GFS is a cracking run tonight right through next weekend for most of us.