TomS

At Stonyhurst observatory yesterday a total of over 14mm rain was recorded in a thunderstorm. This station is only about 3 miles WNW of here, and we didn't have any rain at all, although it did go dark for about two hours late afternoon. An almost impossible job for forecasters in this type of slack thundery situation. Today it has been mostly sunny here since late morning and current temp. is 24.5c, but cloud expected to build with showers later. Only 28mm of rain so far this month!

A rather peculiar trailing cold front has appeared almost from nowhere giving showers here in the last hour or two. Must give credit to the Met.Office for predicting this a couple of days ago!

Not a glimpse of the sun here since Sunday 3rd May. Rainfall so far this month 29mm with this darned waving warm/cold front right over us. Cold front should finally clear N.England overnight, then just windy and showery until weekend!

Lovely and sunny at 9a.m, after a chilly night (2.8c). Cloudy for the rest of the day with continuous light rain since late afternoon. Looking at the latest radar. there should be some heavier bursts overnight. Before today only 23mm rain so far this month. Max. temp. today 10.2c.

The north and west certainly have had the best weather over the Easter period as the weak front stalled and waved over eastern counties. My readings over the Easter weekend:- Good Friday: Max temp 13.1. Cloudy with occasional light rain p.m. Rainfall total 2mm. Saturday: Max temp 17.1. Fine with sunny spells. Rainfall nil. Sunday: Max temp 18.0. Fine with long sunny spells. Rainfall nil. Monday: Max temp 16.9 Fine with sunny spells. Rainfall nil.

According to Woodward & Penn 'The Wrong Kind of Snow' the snow and wind on the 5th April 1911 brought down the Huntingdon Wych Elm at Magdalen College, Oxford, reputedly the tallest tree in Britain, with a height of 142ft and a trunk circumference of 27ft, and had stood for more than four centuries.

2.0mm rain overnight. Current temp. 8.7c. Wind westerly F4 MARCH;- Mean temp. 6.9c. Five air frosts. Lowest Min -5.0 on 29th. Highest Max 15.8c on 19th. Rainfall 54mm.l

I am a semi-sceptic!. The period 1919-39 was similar in temperature to the past twenty years, but nobody was screaming about 'global warming' then. The pollutants from mills and factories was much greater then than it is now. I wonder how much 'funding' is going to environmental scientists and government departments to combat this 'catastrophe' The weather has been going on for millions of years. yet we are supposed to believe in 'climate change' on the basis of about 20 years observations.

A maximum today of 15.9c, with occasional sunshine. As Michael Fish would say, "the cloud will be a bit unreliable" :lol:

Here, just a few miles from Stonyhurst, one of the CET's reference points, the March mean was 6.9c, just about spot on! Rainfall here at Clitheroe was 54mm, rather drier than normal.

My weather records and memory go back to before 1947 (and I mean personally, not just looking things up). Some posters seem to regard the 1980's as the beginning of creation! Compared with previous cold winters, the current one never seems to been properly established, just hanging on by the skin of its teeth for most of the time, unlike the 'severe' winters of the past 60 years when no end seemed to be in sight unlike the present one which appears to be fading away with a whimper, and not a snowy bang! I remember the end of the 1947 winter on March 15/16th when a big snow 'event' seemed likely before the thaw, but here in Lancs, there was a few hours of light snow, before temps rose on the evening of the 15th and that was the end of it, apart from Scotland, where it took another week or so before the cold air was shifted. My earliest snowy memories were for late January 1940 when this area had a tremendous snowfall, at the same time as parts of the south and west were having freezing rain. There were no forecasts of course in wartime, but I wonder what the Met.Office would have made of it!

The N.W of England have escaped most of the snow which other areas have had at various times during this week. The last hope in this declining cold spell is for some frontal snow late on Sunday before it changes to rain. A polar trough may bring some snow showers overnight Fri/Sat, mainly through the Cheshire gap, and by-passing Cumbria and most of Lancs. This has been a rather strange cold spell without dominant blocking highs over Scandinavia or Greenland. Temp. at the moment -2.8C, if it begins to rise a bit would be a sign of some cloud coming in the northwest, otherwise could fall to -6.0C or thereabouts by dawn.

Just a very light dusting of snow overnight. Current temp. after a sunny day is -2.6c, and the coming night could be the coldest so far this month in N.W. England.

Really excellent. Should be a big help to dinosaurs like me who need things spelled out for them in this modern technological world!

Perhaps this is a rather pointless excercise, as much depends on elevation and what is 'officially' a city. Leeds/Bradford airport is quite a bit higher than Leeds city centre. Without trawling through all the statistics, I would guess that Durham in England and Aberdeen in Scotland are the coldest, but there again are we talking of winter or annual, and 'cities' or 'cathedral cities'?