Scorcher

What an absolute shocker of a day- feels truly horrible in the wind and rain. Some sunshine this afternoon but incredibly suppressed temps given the air mass isn't overly cold. We haven't made it into double figures here.

Can't wait to see the back of this absolutely appalling day. It's a nightmare for the garden with the blossom out or on the way out. Just hope things recover.

cheese The BBC local automated forecasts are shocking nowadays. Met Office are much better but overdo cloud amounts and often underdo the temps I find.

Met. Not sure why looking at the fax charts. No weather fronts across your area after today. Showers can't be ruled out but it looks almost completely dry for your area after today.

Horrific day. Just so glad it's probably the last day like this for a while.

Looks like it might finally be happening- after a good 6 months at least! It has been a long slog but let's hope we get a prolonged dry period now. This GFS run is one of the best it's produced for some time with high pressure drifting over the UK as opposed to staying out west.

Cheshire Freeze There were a few posts on the previous page about the GFS FI charts and a lot of unsurprising likes on them.

The coldies are suddenly getting excited again but I think they need to settle down. The GFS is going off on one in deep FI as it always does. Cooler next week but probably not far below average by day for most of us. The Met Office aren't predicting frosts for my area either. Any sunshine will be most welcome, even if it's cool in the shade. The ECM is showing a very different evolution with the high eventually being pushed over the UK, leading to a gradual warmup towards the end of next week.

Metwatch That would be a nightmare for gardeners given the fact things are so advanced already- an April 2021 style spell with regular frosts would cause a lot of problems I imagine.

Summer8906 Yes we can do quite well in a SW flow as long as there's a good breeze. We're effectively in the rain shadow of both Snowdonia and the Clwydian Hills in this setup. It tends to be poor here when the Azores High ridges further north and we're on the northern edge of the high without much of a breeze to shift the cloud.

In Absence of True Seasons Up here today we've got the weather that the southerners all boast about getting more of than us- glorious at the moment and warm. AWD It's started today in NW England

ThomasD27 Yes the change in the air mass was obvious yesterday evening. I could clearly feel the change to the tropical maritime air when I went outside around 8pm. Actually a lovely day here at the moment with broken cloud and a soft breeze. Feeling warm in the sun too at 16C.

danm it was also bright first thing here this morning. Rain started about 8.30 if I recall rightly.

In Absence of True The average max in London in April is still only 15C which is not 'warm in the shade' or anything close to it for me. 15C can feel warm in the sun with light winds but most people wouldn't feel warm in short sleeves in the shade, particularly if it's breezy. Even 19C doesn't feel that warm in the shade. So while temps of 20C+ at this stage in April are very possible, I don't think we should be expecting them anywhere in the country this early on.

B87 So are we saying Seattle should be more around the 1700 hour mark if measured the European way? It does seem ridiculous that July supposedly averages 312 hours there. That's an extreme month in the very best summers for the sunniest places in the UK.

B87 So what do you think a more accurate figure for Boston is?

B87 Interesting if true on the sunshine. Places on the east coast of the US record similar figures to Seattle though and do seem a lot sunnier than the southern UK if you spend a lot of time there.

cheese Seattle isn't much warmer than London even now across the year. Only about 0.5C in it. Seattle has much sunnier summers and much wetter winters though.

B87 That sounds more like summer than spring. Spring is known for being cool in the shade, warm in the sun. If it's 15C, it's not really going to feel warm in the shade.

cheese A growing population is a problem for the reservoirs, even with the extra rain. I personally think it's irresponsible for the government to be encouraging further population growth on an already overcrowded island while not investing in new reservoirs and other infrastructure.

raz.org.rain Both years were miles better up to this point with a superb sunny February in 1998 and a very sunny March and record-breaking warm sunny April in 2007.

My garden was the wettest I've ever seen it this morning with a lot of standing water (I've only lived here since early January though). So I don't think there has been any improvement at all in terms of the ground drying out here. Lots of golf courses in the area still have holes closed due to being waterlogged which I can't remember ever happening before this late in spring. Saturday was a dry, breezy, warmish day here which did dry the ground out to a degree but any time we get a dry day, we get torrential rain again the next day and we're back to square one (or even worse than before). Very much a case of one step forward, two steps back which is incredibly depressing. Especially looking at the latest GFS run this evening.

Addicks Fan 1981 if the difference between this year so far and 2007 so far is anything to go by, the summer will be completely different to 2007.

Addicks Fan 1981 I feel like you're trying to prove a link with 2007 to suggest a similar summer is on the way. March 2007 was also a lot sunnier than this March just gone as well. Where is the sunshine if this year is following a similar pattern?

Addicks Fan 1981 I'm not seeing any parallels with April 2007 at all- other than it being warm so far. We've only had 13.8 hours of sun here up to yesterday. April 2007 was notable for high sunshine amounts from the start. This month is already miles wetter than the whole of April 2007 was.