Andy Bown

Home growns underway, between Frome-Midsomer Norton and around Yeovil/Taunton.

Lively storm over the Channel Islands, will probably head NNW but will it survive!! Such a change in feel, even warm days this Spring have been fresh, until today.

This will be the year of El Warmo! Last year we had 4 excellent daytime storms which had they occurred overnight would have been spectacular. I'm hoping Mother Nature has adjusted her clock by 12 hours!

I expect adults have been nesting nearby, their young have flown the various nests and decided that your garden is the place to be! They are really amusing.

Ian Fergusson said on Points West of thunderstorms moving up from France on Friday!

I have a question for people like Evening Thunder who reported a lot of rain last Sunday/Monday ; how is the ground looking in your area? Does it show signs of how dry it has been except for that 2 day period? I ask because in this area and not just my back yard there was hardly any rain on those 2 days and it's been bone dry for 4 days since, not even a hint of morning dew to dampen the grass! Therefore everything is bone dry and cracking up. What constitutes drought conditions? There has been only 13.5mm since 23rd March! That's 44 days and, after what looked being a rare potentially damp day, tomorrow will also be dry and it will be so at least until next Wednesday. By then we will be up to 50 days with just those 13.5mm! We have paid for dry Spring situations like this previously with very wet summers, however equally there must be every chance of it remaining dry. I have heard/seen it written/said that such dry ground conditions can aid heatwaves so there is potential for real heat. As an aside, what an odd day today, howling Easterly gale and lots of (eventually warm) sunshine.

Much more like it this evening after a mostly fine day. Nothing anywhere nearby on the 18.20 radar then a shower developed to the NNE leading to a red echo directly over BA12 by 18.40 with heavy hail falling!

The dryness continues, just 2mm in my gauge at midnight and a further 1mm this morning which is the sum total of what looked set to be a wet 12 to 18 hours. April's total only 5mm so definitely the driest ever month for me (since 2005) and just 13mm in the last 39 days!

Very similar in these parts. I've lost count of the number of weak fronts giving a few minutes of measly drizzle this month, another ongoing right now. Quite feasible that Sunday, last day of the month, will more than double the monthly total.

2 out of 4 required, looking very likely Friday and Saturday but you may even do tomorrow first unless the next weak front holds more water.

Christmas card scene, white grass and robin on the chair lol !

Mother Nature sure has a sense of humour. Exactly 12 months on from a rapid cool down with cold sunny mornings and active wintry showery afternoons a repeat performance looks likely tomorrow and Wednesday! If last year is anything to go by we will see temperatures drop from about 14c to 3c in a matter of minutes during showers. I just hope we get the brilliant settling soft hail and snow again as well as spectacular CBs. In the meantime another very weak front hasn't given measurable rainfall, although there were a few short sharp showers.

You are right Knocker, it gradually broke up as it moved overhead . I have seen it happen before but the mind wasn't sharp enough at 6am with a teething baby in tow!

Remarkable sky right now, this line of cloud/fog (not sure) stretches right from SW to NE and it is completely clear this side then completely grey beyond it!

Similar here but despite that at 17.1c max it was the warmest day since the summery Sunday nearly a fortnight ago.

Interesting! Sharp showers with large raindrops from high based convection moving North to South!

Also the rain forecasts from various weak fronts have been way off the mark.

Why must we mess with nature? A former colleague of my wife now teaches in Dubai, they have had wetter weather than normal after cloud seeding to promote apparently required rainfall!

Yes a very wet (!!!) evening in Warminster with showers depositing a massive 1mm in the gauge, doubling the monthly total! All it's really done is dampen the dust onto the clean car lol.

April's rain total now stands at a staggering 1mm after overnight drizzle! We may get some showers tomorrow/Monday but then another long dry spell, so how low could it end up as a final total in a fortnight.

We did smaller wash loads yesterday as today seemed set to be dull/damp all day while tomorrow looked fine to do washing again (having a baby necessitates washing dark and light stuff every other day at least lol) and I will not use the tumble dryer except from mid November to late January. So far it's arguably been better than yesterday as there's no fresh wind and it's warmer with the same amount of sunny spells!

Yes, early June 2002, it was the wettest French Open tennis period (until last years deluge) and the amusement of everyone at Euro Disney being issued with bright yellow Disney ponchos. On the plus side it was thundery too lol.

It is!!

There has only been 7.5mm of rain in the last 20 days! The picture is a sundog over Westbury at about 08.00 today.

Sat in Trowbridge Park looking North and the change is just beginning with Cirrus encroaching from the NE.