Worryingly Wet & Worryingly Sunless

[richie3846]

The risk of flooding begins to diminish, with the strengthening sun and trees coming into leaf.

[WYorksWeather]

 Arctic Hare Only thing I can say is the ECM possibly offers better prospects around day 10. But the number of dry spells I've seen at day 10 over the past few months vs. the number that have actually happened tells the story. I'm not getting my hopes up until we have cross model agreement at day 5-7.

[WYorksWeather]

 richie3846 Possibly so, and yet the benchmark for flooding really is 2007, which happened in June.

2007 United Kingdom floods - Wikipedia

EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

 

[baddie]

 Summer8906 Non stop rain for 4 days from the 3rd to 6th, then looking like a dry and bright day on the 7th. Worst April spell since 2018, but maybe the dramatic drop in wind speed over the 7th is a sign for a settled second week???

Im thinking a slightly warmer and sunnier version of April 2005

Edited March 31 by baddie

[richie3846]

 WYorksWeather yes summer floods can happen of course, and these are made worse with dry ground and torrential storms. We've not got dry ground and are unlikely to get torrential storms in April, on the scale required to cause major floods. The flood risk should be a lot lower as we head into April, even if it does continue generally unsettled.

[SunSean]

Imagine this scenario played out in terms of rainfall & sunshine-

April 2024- 96hrs sun/127mm rain, the unsettled theme somehow got worse!

May 2024- 65hrs sun/234mm rain, the unsettled grey/wet guff intensified, making May 2021 look like perfection in comparison!

June 2024- 15hrs of sun/302mm rain, people at this point were absolutely begging for a June 2012 as unprecedented dullness & floods eliminated UK as the rest of Europe began to enjoy a gorgeous Summer!

July 2024- 109hrs of sun/100mm rain, the first 10 days featured 90 hours of sun and only 5mm of rain making some think we finally got out of Satan's pattern only for it to return with a vengeance from the 12th!

August 2024- 0hrs sun/450mm rain, As payback for 10 days of settled weather, low pressure began to fall asleep and start snoring over the UK as not a single minute of sun was recorded and it rained every single day. Meanwhile the rest of the world had the best summer ever, with only UK missing out!

If this were to happen, how would you react?

[Summer8906]

 baddie I hope so as 2005 was pretty benign on the whole. It did have some wet days, but they didn't go on for weeks.

Just hope it isn't something like a warmer (and hence duller) version of 2012 (a month which was mitigated considerably by sunshine at times), or 2000 without the fine first week, or 1983 without the fine spell mid-month...

[baddie]

 Summer8906 I cant imagine how disgusting April 2018 would have been without that hot spell in the 3rd week. First half was horrible, and the last week was as bad as April 2012

[In Absence of True Seasons]

 SunSean I think there would probably be some sort of national revolt, as the British population went loopy.

As for myself, if April and May pan-out like that, I'll  have boarded a one-way ticket to somewhere else by June lol. Perhaps Cuba, it's pretty cheap there, or the Carribbean side of Colombia. 

[SunSean]

 In Absence of True Seasons I've already seen return flights under £100 for Corfu, very tempting! Didnt realise Cuba was cheap??

[baddie]

 SunSean I would have jumped off a bridge by May let alone August

How about this to add on :

September 2024 : 22hrs sun/530mm rain - We get a little respite around mid-month, with 5 dry days and 2 of them are sunny, but the last 10 days are the worst ever seen, with a Storm Babet redux in the last 3 days. The surronding countries enjoy weeks of hot sunshine and thunderstorms. The entire country is underwater and millions of homes have been destroyed

October 2024 : 0hrs sun/800mm rain - The unsettled pattern gets even worse, with cyclonic NE-lies bringing a massive band of rain looping in the shape of a donut over the British Isles for the whole month, wiping out everywhere in the country, while Scandanavian and Greenland Countries enjoy a late summer and an early start to winter, and Iceland recording a bit of sunshine too, but for us its 8c and persistant rain. The country is now just a big river, and almost all homes everywhere are destroyed. Most hospitals are destroyed leaving people to die from weather-related causes

November : 0hrs sun/30mm rain. The rain finally stops with high pressure dominating, but instead of much-needed sunshine, we get one big band of stratus cloud, even bringing drizzle sometimes. Day and Night temps remain static the whole month at 10c, with no variation at all. Flooding has only decreased a little bit, but most of the population have Vitamin D deficiency and still couldnt access hospitals due to severe flooding

Edited April 1 by baddie

[Andy Bown]

 richie3846 not so sure about that because the ground is saturated and with so little sun due to frequent LOWs there won’t be much evaporation either. 
 

Unless there is only rain from 19.00-06.00! If only that could be arranged! 

[In Absence of True Seasons]

 SunSean Well, not so much in terms of flights, although you can get decent deals depending on the time of year. 

But cost of living, food and drink etc, incredibly cheap. 

Cuba also has the most beautiful beaches I've ever seen (subjective, obviously). If you Google Cayo Coco you'll see what I mean! 

Edited April 1 by In Absence of True Seasons

[Summer8906]

 SunSean Attempt to emigrate, even though our Government have made that very bureaucratic.

More realistically, how would people react if we had:

A warmer, more southwesterly (i.e as wet but much duller) version of April 2012

May 2021, but with the final week replaced by May 2007

June 2012

July 2012 (first half) and 2017 (second half)

August 2008 (first half) and 2020 (second half)

September 2017 (first half) and 2019 (second half)

Such a thing would personally be the absolute nightmare summer half of the year!

And then of course, just to finish off:

Oct and Nov 2000

Dec 2015

Lovely!

Edited April 1 by Summer8906

[Metwatch]

Oh dear they're already at it again. That's a wet summer guaranteed then!

UK at risk of summer water shortages and hosepipe bans, scientists warn | Water | The Guardian

WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM

---

Hot and dry conditions could force measures despite country experiencing wettest 18 months since records began

[LetItSnow!]

 Metwatch Enraging article, for two reasons; One is that it is ridiculous to suggest such measures would need to take place but also two, the state of water infrastructure is indeed a shambles… but that is just ridiculous. I know things are probably different but the country managed fine in 1995 and 2003, two dry and hot summers that came off the back of notably wet periods. It’s just infuriating to me to suggest such measures would be necessary because I don’t think they would be, but even more infuriating if they actually would be. 

[SunSean]

 Metwatch There better not be anyone who even dares mention "drought" or "needing rain" if we're lucky to get a few dry & sunny weeks this Summer! I will go absolutely ape lol.

[WYorksWeather]

 SunSean In order to get to any sort of point where 'needing rain' was on the table, I think we'd need something like the following:

Second half of April turns very warm, similar to April 2011. This is then followed by May 2018.

After that, June 2023 with the last few days replaced by June 1976, followed by July 2022 and August 2022/1995 for the summer.

Early September 2023 is then followed by the rest of September 2006, and then the first few days of October 2011 are followed by the rest of October 2001, maybe?

At that stage, after all that, if someone says they fancy a bit of rain, I'll let them off the hook 

Not a fan of the extreme heat of some of those months myself to be fair e.g. July 2022, but most of the rest of that sounds brilliant. And after that, we can have some rain again, though not to the same extent as we've seen lately though.

[WYorksWeather]

 LetItSnow! I think the suggestion is really that no new reservoirs have been built despite a 20% increase in population and a 40% increase in per-person usage. So sadly, such measures might theoretically be necessary if we had an extremely hot and dry summer, but they shouldn't be necessary in a country that made sensible preparations for these things.

Again though, it wouldn't be a proper 'drought' or anything if it happened for a few months like that, it'd just be terrible infrastructure and terrible planning. As you say, really no excuse for it after such a ridiculously wet 9 months if even a few months of drier weather is enough to cause hosepipe bans to be needed.

[LetItSnow!]

 WYorksWeather October 2001 was wet though, not dry. It didn't have the novelty of October 1969 or October 1995 which, IIRC, were mostly fine and dry.

[raz.org.rain]

 WYorksWeather my general rule of thumb is that such an extreme combination will happen sooner rather than later. Given that prolonged spells of weather are becoming more of a theme of our climate we could very well see such a combination very soon.

[WYorksWeather]

 LetItSnow! Good point. Swap that bit out 

I was putting this together fairly quickly and rather lazily threw a few months together.

[SunSean]

 WYorksWeather I'd definitely take a set up of months like that lol.

If April passes 50mm of rain, which is looking likely by the forecast of the first 10 days alone, this will be the 19th month out of the last 21 in my area to record over 50mm of rain. I beg for a drought!

[danm]

When is going to stop raining?

WWW.BBC.CO.UK

---

It has felt like it's been raining for weeks now and many of us are looking for a prolonged dry spell.

 

[SunSean]

Yet more "much needed rain". 4 days in a row of near washouts to start April! Another 50mm+ month here we come!

Least we got a new natural swimming pool in the local nature park I guess...