Harve

I thought the atmosphere would be running out of moisture now, but the rainfall has just turned heavy again despite looking to be petering out throughout the evening. It's crazy. I don't remember such a wet 48 hours since June 2007 (though I'm sure actual statistics could disprove this).

The rain over the last two hours has probably been the heaviest of the entire spell here, being persistently heavy with only occasional lapses to moderate rainfall, although just now it's stopped more or less entirely. Today looks like it could even rival yesterday's rainfall total.

At 3.8c right now in Buxton with drizzle falling, we're not too far from snow now... It all looks like rain here though, perhaps sleety above 500m.

True. The reasonably short journey from south Derbyshire, nevermind Coventry, to the Peak District almost always entails the weather becoming three times as vile.

In Buxton, today looks to be beating that 'pick of the bunch' day. 20mm so far and a daytime maximum of roughly 6.5c in the early hours of this morning. The 7.6c 'high' shown on the link came very shortly after midnight. http://buxtonweather.co.uk/

I don't think I will be. Temperatures look cooling down just a notch, to near-perfect levels and humidity looks to fall too, correcting the two main things wrong with this spell!

26c is about right for the very hottest of days, any warmer and it's no longer pleasant. If I'm wanting to do any sort of outdoor activity, though, 18-19c is the optimum. In fact, if I'm running anything between -12 and 5c is perfect: quite rare unless I'm in a sheltered valley at 4.30am (a few days before Christmas 2010, I went for a run into Dovedale at 8am knowing it was very cold but not knowing it was -18c!). The ideal cycling temperature is probably 12c. I do like warm evenings though, at around 18c. I wish there were some mechanism that lowers temperatures into single figures past midnight.

I wouldn't say so - the average maximum in May for Leeds is 15c, so the 24c forecast tomorrow is 9c above average, which is quite substantial. Conversely it could be said to be as exceptional as a 6c maximum - I think most would agree this is also quite significant. Perhaps saying that mid to high 20's 'should' occur every year shows how warm Mays have been recently (although there have been no exceptionally warm April 2011-type Mays for a while).

Today is perhaps my least favourite weather imaginable: dry, cloudy and downright cold for the time of year at an 8c max. If it were a few degrees colder or a lot foggier then it would at least be vaguely interesting but right now it is the epitome of banality.

You can't "vouch for most of the Mediterranean". Temperatures on the coast sometimes don't reflect actual sea surface temperatures. I remember the sea being rather baltic off the coast of south-eastern Ireland in July 2010 - it had apparently been rather warm a few days before and was prone to fluctuations. Out in the sea, you can see that large anomalies take a few weeks to form or disappear.However in this case there is a reflection.

You live in a small corner of an island that covers a very small part of the globe. Even if we were to pretend the rest of the world didn't exist, as TWS shows it's been getting warmer when considering years as a whole. Of course, there's very little preventing record-breakingly low temperatures occurring in the warmest of years: all that requires is a few days of cold. Record-breaking cold temperatures have never been counter-evidence to overall temperature rises. You're also fallaciously equivocating warmth to settled weather.

I'm at just ~100m right now and there's a few flakes of sleet coming down. I can't quite believe it though; at Buxton it's 7c so probably even warmer here.

Hardly the height of summer, but I remember a spell in early or mid March 2010 - near the equinox - having maxima of just 2-4c across the Midlands despite a moderately strong sun for the time of year and clear skies throughout. I believe minima were widely around -5c.

The heating has rarely been on this year: only if I'm feeling ill or during early February. Otherwise, I simply wear an extra layer.

More vile than any day in April today. Here, it's been drizzly with thick fog and zero sun. At least April was interesting for its cool temperatures, snow, showers and heavy frontal rain. Today just feels like one of those mild January days that seem to always follow a cold spell.

There's actually been a heavy shower that's passed over here from the east, developing around the Ripley area - perhaps the heaviest since a hailstorm about three weeks ago while I was in Ashbourne. http://buxtonweather.co.uk/ This webcam here shows another nearby that's slightly lighter, according to the radar, to the north of Buxton,

Just 2.2c at midday in Buxton with a windchill of -5c. It's probably a widespread "windchill ice day"! Impressive for the very end of April.

174mm so far in Buxton and 43mm in the last 36 hours.

11.7c please.

<p> Severn-Trent operates reservoirs in Eastern and North-Eastern Wales, as well as the Peak District. I don't see how there'd be a lack of water then.

The Dove has been at normal levels since the snowstorm the other week, and I don't think this part of the world would be classified as "in drought", though yes, the ground never holds too much water here. Further south and east it's likely to be a different story, so perhaps Staffordshire and Derbyshire do merit being in drought.

There must've been far more snow and wind than I imagined the other week, as there's still plenty of snowdrifts that have survived the rain and relative warmth. They're looking quite out of place now!

No no, southern Germany to Northern Italy is two countries away - I'm talking about a 5 mile tunnel!

I'll assume you haven't been through an Alpine tunnel on a rainy / snowy day, only to come out at the other side to bright sunshine and just a few clouds drifting over from where you've came from! When I was in France last December, there was a freak, 'storm of the century' dumping of a metre. The Italian border was just a few miles away, although had 4000m peaks on it. Ski resorts in the next valley over received a mere dusting, and this became the case throughout the first half of the current ski season. In short, the rain shadow effect is much stronger there, you probably just have more experience of Welsh and English mountains.

There's quite a bit less than 30cm here, near Hartington. I'm not sure if it's to do with my altitude being slightly lower at 280m, or being assumedly further west than you, since most places in Derbyshire's Peak District are west of here. I imagine a combination of the two. Anyway, the snow's eased off recently and is actually looking sleety in lighter bursts. The depth is highly variable but I reckon a mean of 12cm wouldn't be far out.