April 1989 - cold anomaly

[damianslaw]

Don't recall April 1989, but I'm always a bit perplexed by it, given how mild the four months previous had been, and also how warm the following four months would be. 

It was a notably cold April, I think 6.9 degrees, correct if wrong, not as cold as 1986 mind...

Any one have any recollections of this month, any snow events.. I think there were many frost, but no notable depth of cold both maxima or minima wise - consistently chilly, something that also happened in May 1996 which I do have strong memories of, but that month came on the back of a protracted cold period..

April 1989 an oddity..

[cheeky_monkey]

i remember April came after a mild and dry Feb and Mar..was cold and some snow first 2 weeks? or mid month cant quite remember...May 89 was warm and sunny i think

[Don]

5 minutes ago, damianslaw said:

Don't recall April 1989, but I'm always a bit perplexed by it, given how mild the four months previous had been, and also how warm the following four months would be. 

It was a notably cold April, I think 6.9 degrees, correct if wrong, not as cold as 1986 mind...

Any one have any recollections of this month, any snow events.. I think there were many frost, but no notable depth of cold both maxima or minima wise - consistently chilly, something that also happened in May 1996 which I do have strong memories of, but that month came on the back of a protracted cold period..

April 1989 an oddity..

I think it's fair to say April 1989 was a 'blip' during an otherwise very mild period.  The CET was 6.6C, so not as cold as 1986 which I believe had a very cold CET of 5.8C?  There was a fair amount of snow on the 5th, where parts of Surrey saw depths of around 3 inches and the most snow since January 1987.  The next major snow event for the south was February 1991.

Edited March 20, 2020 by Don

[Weather-history]

9 hours ago, damianslaw said:

Don't recall April 1989, but I'm always a bit perplexed by it, given how mild the four months previous had been, and also how warm the following four months would be. 

 

April 1989 an oddity..

You'll find a number of instances of oddities within the weather records. I was going to do an article on these a couple of years back calling them "the cuckoos in the nest"

 

Look at 1814 CETs

1814  -2.9  1.4  2.9  9.6  9.2  12.2  16.0  14.7  12.8  8.1  4.7  4.3 

Look how much April sticks out after such a cold period and to a lesser degree July. That's a real cuckoo in the nest

 

Recently May 2006 to June 2007 and note August (in bold) sticks out when surrounding months were so much above normal

12.3  15.9  19.7  16.1  16.8  13.0  8.1  6.5  7.0  5.8  7.2  11.2  11.9  15.1

Even the very cold year of 1740 has a cuckoo in its nest, the September of that year

-2.8  -1.6  3.9  6.4  8.6  12.8  15.3  14.7  14.0  5.3  3.3  2.2 

1784, its got two but the standout of the two is the May. Look how warm May is compared to the rest of the year 

-0.6  1.4  2.7  5.7 13.5  13.7  15.2  14.0  14.8  7.8   5.5   0.3    

 

Edited March 21, 2020 by Weather-history

[damianslaw]

Wow look at how cold 1740 was! September an oddity indeed, look at October at 5.3 degrees! preety astonishing really.. May also very cold.

[Relativistic]

August 2014 was a bit of a cuckoo. I guess such months arise when entrenched blocking patterns temporarily shift east- or west-wards before quickly moving back to the favoured regime.

Edited March 22, 2020 by Relativistic

[Summer of 95]

June 1990 was another one

[Weather-history]

Can also get these with rainfall totals

July to November 1865   84.4  126.0  9.5  168.4  90.3

Note how dry September was 

 

July to November 1921.  How wet August was for such a dry year

10.3   29.3  93.5   40.9   52.2

 

 

[hillbilly]

I don't recall the exact weather that month but I believe there was some snow earlier that month,quite normal here in the pennines. Since Autumn 1984 the land on our farm remained wet not only through the winters but summers up to this April.One of our fields was so wet that April we decided to drain it as parts of it were not possible to traverse with the tractorI never thought it would dry up yet within a couple of weeks we would be basking in glorious weather that would last into the autumn and the fields were dry for the first time in 5 years.