Spring 2021: Moans, Groans, Ramps and Banter.

[I remember Atlantic 252]

2 hours ago, Scorcher said:

I was just looking at the sunshine stats for my local weather station Rostherne and the sunshine levels for the month so far are almost identical to last April at this point in the month. 

Only 8mm of precipitation so far as well.

Temperatures have obviously been a lot lower however. 

Rainy Manchester eh!

Driest time of year for one of driest areas in country between April and mid June, Manchester not wet anyway, false saying

[Snowy L]

Nice day today, might even hit the dizzy heights of bang average 13C. What a joke desperately waiting over half the month just to get average temperatures.

Edited April 17, 2021 by Snowy L

[Arctic Hare]

Going to admit that today was really quite pleasant. I went to Worcester to see a few friends, and of course we were a bit nervous about the weather since we had to stay outdoors. Turned out to be very comfortable sitting in the park in the sunshine. For once it didn't get overcast and chilly after lunch, and that made all the difference even though it was only 13 °C.

Tomorrow doesn't look quite so good, admittedly!

[Nick L]

Sadly on nights this weekend so couldn't enjoy today's pleasant weather. Meet up with uni mates on Tuesday looks nice enough, but the less said about the end of tonight's EC the better.

[hillbilly]

7 hours ago, Snowy L said:

Nice day today, might even hit the dizzy heights of bang average 13C. What a joke desperately waiting over half the month just to get average temperatures.

I think you have been spoilt by some recent Aprils.Yes it is looking like it will be the coldest April since 1989,ie the coldest in 32 years yet back then Aprils were a little colder with three,Yes three Aprils in the 80s were colder than this Month with 1986 by a margin!

 

[Daniel*]

9 hours ago, I remember Atlantic 252 said:

Driest time of year for one of driest areas in country between April and mid June, Manchester not wet anyway, false saying

It’s not a false saying compared with London a lot wetter about 60% more rainfall this goes to as much as 115% in outskirts. 
 

Greenwich annual rainfall: 557mm

Woodford (Greater Manchester): 867mm

Rochdale north Greater Manchester: 1118.6mm

[damianslaw]

Turning into a very dry April here.. been out in the fells today, rivers and lakes and reservoirs preety low and ground dry. No appreciable rain for nearly 3 weeks, and not much on the horizon, just hope the heavens don't open when May arrives, my favourite month.. would much rather have a wet April than wet May.

Edited April 17, 2021 by damianslaw

[Frost HoIIow]

6 minutes ago, Daniel* said:

It’s not a false saying compared with London a lot wetter about 60% more rainfall this goes to as much as 115% in outskirts. 
 

Greenwich annual rainfall: 557mm

Woodford (Greater Manchester): 867mm

Rochdale north Greater Manchester: 1118.6mm

Yeah 300-600mm more is a much wetter place imo. Here in the Oldham area of Greater Manchester it's been very dry & sunny lately but that's normal for Spring, it's done the same thing since being a young lad and I'm now 70. Often it starts to frequently rain in June until early September then we have a bit of warm dry period again. It's almost the same pattern every year for as long as I can remember. If you did a forecast for this you would be bang on more often than not.

This climate graph shows April being the driest month in Manchester and then it gradually goes downhill.

And here's Heathrow. Clearly a much drier place and doesn't go downhill as summer goes along unlike Manchester.

[AderynCoch]

Dry and wet are relative terms though. Manchester is wet compared to London but dry compared to Fort William. London is wet compared to Astrakhan. And almost everywhere is wet compared to Arica. 

And that's without considering other factors like the number of days with rainfall and how intense it is.

Edited April 17, 2021 by AderynCoch

[Frost HoIIow]

48 minutes ago, AderynCoch said:

Dry and wet are relative terms though. Manchester is wet compared to London but dry compared to Fort William. London is wet compared to Astrakhan. And almost everywhere is wet compared to Arica. 

And that's without considering other factors like the number of days with rainfall and how intense it is.

But we can still compare. It's true however to an extent that it's relative & what you are used to, but climate averages are there for a reason - they don't often sway very far from the norm unless there's been a climatic shift. And while we have climate change running in the background those averages still seem pretty accurate for the time being. And at the end of the day it doesn't change the fact that Manchester is in the wetter half of the table for Britain. A long with other western facing areas. Anyway I don't think this discussion is really meant for this thread. 

Edited April 17, 2021 by Frost HoIIow

[Daniel*]

46 minutes ago, AderynCoch said:

Dry and wet are relative terms though. Manchester is wet compared to London but dry compared to Fort William. London is wet compared to Astrakhan. And almost everywhere is wet compared to Arica. 

And that's without considering other factors like the number of days with rainfall and how intense it is.

Compared to populous places which should be measured against as this is where a lot of people are experiencing the weather, Manchester is undoubtedly wet. We’re talking about the U.K. here I don’t care about Saharan Africa has no relevance. 

Edited April 17, 2021 by Daniel*

[damianslaw]

9 hours ago, Frost HoIIow said:

Yeah 300-600mm more is a much wetter place imo. Here in the Oldham area of Greater Manchester it's been very dry & sunny lately but that's normal for Spring, it's done the same thing since being a young lad and I'm now 70. Often it starts to frequently rain in June until early September then we have a bit of warm dry period again. It's almost the same pattern every year for as long as I can remember. If you did a forecast for this you would be bang on more often than not.

This climate graph shows April being the driest month in Manchester and then it gradually goes downhill.

And here's Heathrow. Clearly a much drier place and doesn't go downhill as summer goes along unlike Manchester.

The rainfall stats for Manchester mirror largely the pattern here in Windermere, though you need add significantly to the amounts. May possibly not quite the same degree of difference compared to April,  Nov, Dec about the same as October, Jan not as far behind.

February is a month to reflect, often drier than the summer months despite being winter. Indeed Feb Mark's the start of the dry third of the year which peaks in April and fizzles out in June.

[reef]

We've had just 1.0mm so far this month (of which 0.4mm was dew) and the GFS has us with nothing until at least the 26th. The final third of March was bone dry too so its looking like an extremely dry extended spell in spring again.

Will we pay for it in summer I wonder?

[AderynCoch]

10 hours ago, Daniel* said:

Compared to populous places which should be measured against as this is where a lot of people are experiencing the weather, Manchester is undoubtedly wet. We’re talking about the U.K. here I don’t care about Saharan Africa has no relevance. 

I didn't mention Saharan Africa but since you did, Cairo is bigger than London and gets hardly any rain.

My point was, wet and dry are not absolutes. "Manchester is undoubtedly wet" compared to London but in UK terms? It's not so straightforward. Internationally, the whole of the UK (including London) has a reputation for being wet, most likely due to the nature of the rainfall rather than the actual amount. 

Edited April 18, 2021 by AderynCoch

[Scorcher]

13 hours ago, Daniel* said:

It’s not a false saying compared with London a lot wetter about 60% more rainfall this goes to as much as 115% in outskirts. 
 

Greenwich annual rainfall: 557mm

Woodford (Greater Manchester): 867mm

Rochdale north Greater Manchester: 1118.6mm

London is one of the drier places in the country though and is actually drier than a lot of major cities on the continent.

The Woodford figure is certainly representative of good portion of Greater Manchester (mostly flat apart from the northern and Eastern parts) with places like Rochdale higher up and close to the slopes of the Pennines.

By international standards I don't think 867mm is that wet at all if you're taking it at face value. Obviously it's important to look at the number of rainy days as well.

For example New York is considerably wetter than Manchester annually but the rain falls on fewer days overall.

[Arch Stanton]

51 minutes ago, Scorcher said:

London is one of the drier places in the country though and is actually drier than a lot of major cities on the continent.

The Woodford figure is certainly representative of good portion of Greater Manchester (mostly flat apart from the northern and Eastern parts) with places like Rochdale higher up and close to the slopes of the Pennines.

By international standards I don't think 867mm is that wet at all if you're taking it at face value. Obviously it's important to look at the number of rainy days as well.

For example New York is considerably wetter than Manchester annually but the rain falls on fewer days overall.

You’re right about London and comparisons to major cities on the continent, Rome being wetter than London is one of those cities which people find unbelievable. However, I’d be amazed if that were still true - in the last 7/8yrs London seems to have got a lot wetter, I’d obviously need to look at some charts to confirm this.

[Arctic Hare]

Just for fun... if you type in "Mull annual rainfall" into Google, the first result that comes up is... 390 mm! So there you have it, clearly an island in the Hebrides is drier than London.

(I'm not sure what the real figure is as all the sources I can find disagree, but this weather station at Corran Ferry near Fort William recorded over 2,200 mm in 2018. As anyone who's been there will know, western Scotland sees plenty of rain!)

[B87]

How many years were there that had a terrible April/May and then still had a good summer? This April will end up in Heathrow's top 4 coldest, even with the 2nd half of the month being close to average.

1991 had a decent August, but July was average and June was the coldest on record at Heathrow. Can't think of any that actually had an average or good summer.

 

The only positive at the moment is that April looks like being our first slightly sunnier than average month since September! Hopefully we will have a 6 month period of sustained sunny months to even out the extreme cloudy spell of Oct-Mar!

Edited April 18, 2021 by B87

[Frigid]

10 minutes ago, B87 said:

How many years were there that had a terrible April/May and then still had a good summer? This April will end up in Heathrow's top 4 coldest, even with the 2nd half of the month being close to average.

1991 had a decent August, but July was average and June was the coldest on record at Heathrow. Can't think of any that actually had an average or good summer.

 

The only positive at the moment is that April looks like being our first slightly sunnier than average month since September! Hopefully we will have a 6 month period of sustained sunny months to even out the extreme cloudy spell of Oct-Mar!

1983, 1996 and 2013 could be considered as having poor April/Mays but with a good summer, especially 1983 with a 19.5C July. 

[B87]

11 minutes ago, Frigid said:

1983, 1996 and 2013 could be considered as having poor April/Mays but with a good summer, especially 1983 with a 19.5C July. 

There is still some hope that we will get a summer this year then! 

[MP-R]

3 minutes ago, B87 said:

There is still some hope that we will get a summer this year then! 

Also, there aren’t many poor April’s that are also dry and on the sunny side so there’s a degree of unusualness about this year.

[B87]

2 minutes ago, MP-R said:

Also, there aren’t many poor April’s that are also dry and on the sunny side so there’s a degree of unusualness about this year.

Looking at Heathrow data, April 1968 and 1994 were cool and sunny, though not particularly dry with 40-50mm.

April 1969 and 1976 were cool, dry and sunny.

Overall that's 2 years with bad summers and 2 years with good summers.

[MP-R]

15 minutes ago, B87 said:

Looking at Heathrow data, April 1968 and 1994 were cool and sunny, though not particularly dry with 40-50mm.

April 1969 and 1976 were cool, dry and sunny.

Overall that's 2 years with bad summers and 2 years with good summers.

Blimey. Even rarer than I thought. Anyone’s guess then.

[Fourty Point Three Degrees]

I can't believe there's talk of reservoirs drying up already i would've thought they would be nicely full and topped up to last another 5 months. 

[Bradley in Kent]

24 minutes ago, 38.7°C said:

I can't believe there's talk of reservoirs drying up already i would've thought they would be nicely full and topped up to last another 5 months. 

I know what you mean, but when you get a deluge, most of the water runs away never having the chance to soak through saturated ground. 

That's what makes wet winters even worse, knowing that most of the rain is being wasted anyway!

Also, we are densely populated so when the rain stops we quickly use it up!