Arctic Hare

Wet on Saturday for Coronation Day. Dry, bright and warm* yesterday for the local small street party. Wet again now for the Bank Holiday. * 19.4 °C, one tenth off my 2023 high from a few days earlier...

Very decent morning here - 17 °C already and broken cloud, feeling fairly warm. Maybe an outside chance of sneaking my first 20 of the year this afternoon, though it may be a bit cloudy for that.

The 1953 coronation was famously wet, at least in London. Not sure about everywhere else, but surely everyone was indoors watching it on their newfangled televisions!

Yep, thunder (and blustery rain) now in Bewdley as well. Earlier it was very nice indeed in the sun. A new 2023 high for me (19.5 °C, curses!) and lots of people sitting outside and down by the river. Wouldn't want to be sitting in the park now though!

A fine day for the most part here, and a new 2023 high for me (18.7 °C) but sadly marred by the last few hours, which have devolved into murk and gloom, and I now have the light on before 7 once again. Oh well, it was nice earlier.

February 1982 was slightly milder than average, so I'd go for 78/79, which wasn't unremittingly cold and snowy but had major parts of all three winter months (and pretty much all of January) in the freezer.

Hmm, then in that case I have to be humble and admit I was (probably) wrong!

Other than the rain early this morning, the best day in some while here. (Saturday was great for a few hours but fell apart later on.) I got up to 17.1 °C, the second warmest of the year. There was no further rain, a decent amount of sun and light winds. A walk in the park in the afternoon was genuinely enjoyable. Might get another 2-3 days of this, which if so would be the longest settled(ish) period here for months. Fingers crossed!

I can imagine mean daily temps in Mar+Apr have been about average. But mean maxima, which is what matters 95% of the time in everyday life? I may be wrong, but I'd be very surprised if the stats showed those were average in Worcestershire. All that said, only fair to mention that after morning rain cleared, today was a substantial improvement in this neck of the woods. Reasonably warm (max 17.1 °C), a fair amount of sunshine in the afternoon and no nagging cold wind. As I've said, I don't need miracles - something like this is more than acceptable and useable.

I see we've being doing the "we used to walk 346 miles uphill in t'snow an' then our dad would freeze us to death wi' liquid helium when we got 'ome, but we was 'appy" thing. I do remember as a kid in January 1982 the dregs of some coffee that my dad had accidentally left in the kitchen overnight being frozen in the morning. But I wasn't 'appy at all, I was delighted when we moved to a house with central heating a few years later! Overcast here again this morning (shock horror) but at least not as utterly gloomy as it's been so often this year and acceptably mild for 10am at 12 °C. If, and it's a huge massive ginormous if, the cloud actually does break this afternoon and we avoid rain then it could be a reasonable day to start a new month with.

Heat is quite a long way down my wishlist tbh. Another 40 °C would be a negative for me, not a positive. If the weather gods offered me right now a May with an absolute max of 20 °C but plenty of dry, bright weather, then a summer of only average temps, no big heatwaves but again often dry and bright, then I would take it like a shot. March was a horrible month here with extensive flooding. It wasn't just average for the time of year, it was outright poor. April has at least avoided the flooding but it's been persistently cool - one day reaching 17 °C is again poor even for April. Especially when even that day (yesterday) was totally unusable outdoors after 4pm due to far more rain than forecast even 24 hours out. Now, it is fair to say that if May turns out well then many of us (including me) will probably be happy to forget March and April and move on. But it doesn't mean this spring up to now has been okay and we're unreasonable to moan about it. As has been mentioned there are huge regional variations so I can see how someone in a place that's faring better may wonder what the fuss is about. But here in Worcs? It's not average for the time of year, it really isn't. It's poor.

After a very nice *half* day yesterday, it's back to this spring's usual rubbish today. 12 °C, completely overcast all day, frequent light rain. Apart from daylight hours this really could be November - and the number of times I've had the light on by 6pm, even the longer daylight hours don't mean as much as they should. Mild nights + cool days = average overall but don't = pleasant. As Summer8906 said earlier, a big problem is the lack of settled weather. Spring in England rarely brings extended periods of that and I do get that. But even yesterday was drenchingly wet and unusable for anything outdoors after about 4pm. It doesn't help that (for Worcs at least) there have been several forecasts at as little as 24 hours before that have suggested 2-3 days of acceptably warm (15 °C plus), bright, dry conditions and every single one has ended up with less sun and more rain than forecast. Barring an amazing turnaround in May, this will have been a very poor spring indeed for here, cool and dull and damp.

A mixed day today, but the middle of the day was brilliant. Started out rather grey, though milder than recently, but then improved rapidly towards lunchtime. Max of 18.8 °C, easily my highest of 2023 (by about two degrees!), and a decent amount of genuinely warm sunshine. The first time this year I've been able to stroll around in shirtsleeves and feel pleasantly warm. Then it fell apart again, with frequent showers (some heavy) from about 3:30 pm onwards. I walked home from town an hour or so ago and was wet through after ten minutes. It's now dull, damp, overcast and (again) murky enough to need the lights on. So... half a good day, maybe? Which is half a day more than most of this spring! Next target: a day when it's nice all the time...

Blimey, they must have had a lot more sun than we did not far up the road! 3.5 °C cooler here. As for the Coronation, I definitely will be watching it - doesn't matter what I think of the institution, it's still a big public event and I've always found those interesting in themselves. Will also be interesting to see what happens if it absolutely chucks it down as it did for the Queen in 1953!

Yeah, the gloom in the evening was really disappointing. We did get a bit of sunshine here in Worcs in the afternoon, but that just meant having to turn on the light at 5:30 was even more depressing. Tomorrow looks potentially wetter than originally forecast too, though it'll be showers so I might be lucky and miss most of them.

Spoke a bit too soon earlier. Really clouded over and I had to put the light on at 5:30. Sigh. Is it too much to ask to have a completely dry day, with at least some sunshine and decent temperatures, without it falling into gloom three hours before sunset? I guess it is. Tomorrow's forecast now has a good deal more in the way of heavy showers in it than it did 12 hours ago, too. At least it won't be freezing cold any more, though. Small mercies... Edit: Oh yeah... made it to 16.1 °C today. That makes two (count 'em!) days this year I've hit 16, with two days of April to go. As I said earlier, I don't give a damn about daily means held up by mild nights. Daytime maxes have been complete rubbish.

A considerably better day here. Max so far 15.6 °C which is still not great (not even my highest this spring) and 2-3 degrees below forecast max, but with sunshine from time to time and the end of that infernal nagging easterly it feels really quite acceptable.

It's a dull, boring, snoozefest of a month in these parts. "Dull" in both senses. It's a little more useable in some ways than March, given it's not raining all the time, just some of the time. But it's stupidly cool day after day (I really don't care about overall daily means in everyday life; mild nights matter very little if you're in bed) and I think there have been two days all spring where people have been sitting in beer gardens unless they had to be out there (eg smoking). I just want some sunshine.

It would take quite something to be worse than summer 2012, but I think you've just managed it!

A lovely day yesterday, then back to a rather meh one today. At least finally a slight warmup seems on the cards.

Tbh I think you've put your finger on it. March 2013 for example was really cold, but at least in these parts there was a good deal of snow which added interest. Storms add interest, even if I don't much like them. That classic April mix of bright warm sunshine and sudden heavy showers with hail adds interest. But grey and overcast and low teens for day upon day upon day... in every sense that is just dull.

This is literally a "Moans, Ramps & Chat" thread, though. It's specifically not supposed to be for pure calm, unemotional, objective thoughts. IIRC this thread was set up in the first place to stop general emotional stuff filling up places like the Models thread. As such, this particular thread is one place on these forums where it is okay to be agitated and irritated by the weather not doing what we want. Within site rules of course. On another note, I think mean daily temps are often a poor guide to how good things feel. To give a very simple example: a week when every day was overcast with a max of 14 °C and a min of 10 °C would have a warmer daily mean than a week with clear skies, maxes of 18 °C and mins of 5 °C. But the second would, for me at least, be massively preferable.

A beautiful day here today. Wall to wall sunshine and as long as you got out of the wind it felt really quite warm. Even sat in the garden with a book for an hour this afternoon for the first time this year, though a jumper was a necessity. As said above, though, the depressed temperatures are getting really tiresome. Low teens, low teens, low teens, low teens, low teens, every day. It's 20th April and I don't expect miracles, but the odd day of 17 °C or so shouldn't be too much to ask for by now.

On the actual topic of this thread... I'll leave the alert on for the 23rd and then see how it goes. If the authorities do the sensible thing and really do use this only for very urgent situations, then I'll leave it on. If they start using it every time there's a chance of 60 mph gusts or something, then I'll switch it off with no regrets.

Back to dull and chilly today after the one niceish day yesterday. Low teens max isn't disastrous for the time of year, but with no sun and a brisk easterly it's still much too cold for me to go out without a coat or sit outside for a coffee. Naturally now it's blue skies and sunshine, but it felt as though it was on the verge of raining for much of the afternoon.