richie3846

B87 agreed, it's unlikely you'll catch up. It's been a little sunnier here so not so far behind average. The point I was making was more of a general observation about the nature of averages, and how statistics can sometimes lead our thinking down a particular path, rather than this year specifically.

B87 yes I understand the concept that there are 4 months on average that are over 200 hours, but that doesn't mean each 4 month peak sun period will have above 200 hours of sun, even if it ends up being sunny overall. What I was trying to say was that measuring 835 hours over the 4 months may be more balanced and fair.

B87 I think you mentioned something about 4 months over 200 hours of sunshine recently also, and it got me thinking. Now you've mentioned it again, I'll bring the up the point that popped into my head. If there's 800+ hours of sunshine over the 4 months period, then that would be the level you are talking about. Within those 4 months, there may be some up and some down, so one may get 250 and another 150, which would still be 400. It seems unlikely for 4 months in a row to have over 200 hours of sunshine each in our climate, and when it happens it's probably more of a rarity. What I'm suggesting is, total hours of sunshine over the 4 months period may be a more balanced measure of sunshine. We could have 900 hours of sunshine and still end up with 2 months below 200, so I'm not sure that taking the average for each month in isolation is a true reflection of a 4 month period as a whole.

60 hours of sunshine over the last 9 days, with maybe another 10 hours to add today, fingers crossed. So for the first 20 days, it seems like locally (records from Brize Norton) we'll be around the 100 hour mark. Quite a turnaround from the dreary 29 hours recorded in the opening 10 days of the month.

LetItSnow! Dismal sunshine yes, though the overall figure does hide the fact that most of the overcast skies were in the opening week or so, and maybe around the 10th onwards, sunshine has been at least average in parts, maybe a touch over for some. We've definitely enjoyed very good sunny spells round these parts since the middle of the second week of the month.

Metwatch under the surface, roots are sucking the water out much faster than we often appreciate on the surface. This gives surface water a larger space to travel into. Grass can suck down to about a metre and trees around 3 metres or so.

mountain shadow Lots of rain for the north so far this month, are you in the same camp, with record rainfalls?

*Stormforce~beka* I'm using brainspotting therapy. I thoroughly recommend it, and it's not available on the NHS. I'm certain it'll be the standard therapy in the future, because it's the most powerful, and leads to full recoveries with no caveats.

TwisterGirl81 sorry, I jumped the gun there. I'm a little prone to that as I'm in recovery from complex PTSD. stainesbloke it sounds awful. At least in southern UK, days as cold as that in mid April are pretty rare.

danm wow that's pretty nasty. I wouldn't swap our more temperate April for the ups and downs of Europe.

TwisterGirl81 sorry for trying to inject a bit of positivity. I shan't bother again. Looking on the bright side is now gaslighting apparently?? Azazel It was very nice for the few days we had it. Getting on for 20c for some places, not bad for mid April in my book, even if Europe was hot at the time.

Central Europe looks cool and showery over the next few days. Some parts of the UK look to be drier and slightly warmer than a big chunk of the continent. Silver linings and all that, it could be a lot worse than what we have forecast in the next few days. They are paying for their heatwave now, UK style

In Absence of True Seasons it looks very normal to me. I just had a flick through 10 years of data at Northolt, most of them were mostly in low to high teens, a lot of cool days, heat spikes sporadic and not particularly common. This is what London has most Aprils, most of the time, at least over the last decade.

In Absence of True Seasons It's not really one for the message boards this, so if you want to message privately then that's good with me. Many of these autoimmune conditions are often caused by unprocessed stress and trauma, which is not so obvious or easy to see, and the medical world is way behind the curve with this. There is a way forward with all this, and if you wanted to chat privately, let me know. I may be able to offer some further reading and pointers of where to start looking. People are recovering from these types of disorders once they address the underlying issues in the brain.

In Absence of True Seasons C'mon it's about 4c above average for your location! Light cloud symbols usually indicate a reasonable amount of sun/hazy sun at least. It'll feel very spring like and warm I'm sure.

WYorksWeather and to add to that, away from the West, rainfall totals have been a lot lower over the last few days, so hopefully the ground is starting to dry out at long last. Once the tipping point is reached where evapotranspiration is higher than rainfall, things should dry out fairly rapidly. The end of April should look a lot different than the beginning, good news for gardeners, farmers, and anyone leaving the house really.

Bradley in Kent locally I've also seen bluebells out fully, even at the beginning of the month, and rapeseed has been in flower since late March. Very early, by several weeks.

This is the nearest soil temperature monitoring site near London, and these 50cm depth readings clearly indicate that 2024 is well ahead of recent years in terms of temperature. Currently 8.3c with 2018 at around 7.8c. Unsurprisingly 2021 is the coldest at 6.4c.

LetItSnow! Luckily we had that colder spell in January, which may be enough to reset the seasonal clock of most foliage.

It's very unlikely to get to May and not be in full leaf this year given how consistently mild it's been. It would take a long northerly to make any major dent in growth at this stage.

B87 I suspect many are breaking out in leaf right now, which is not visible on this sort of long distance shot

LetItSnow! I've been astounded at the advancement of spring this year, it's only the 7th of April and we're on the brink of full leaf of all trees. In the chilly spring of 2021, our local ash wasn't in full leaf until early June. This year it seems likely this could happen before the end of April.

B87 it'll be worth checking the varieties that are in the photos. They are likely to be the later developing trees. It's been exceptionally mild for a long time now, it's not feasible that growth isn't ahead, trees can't defy physics.

B87 B87 I think this is unlikely. Unless London has been colder than Swindon, the rest of the bare trees are going to open up really quickly now we've had some warmer weather.

LetItSnow! also depends on the dominant varieties in any given area. Horse chestnuts about to flower, and coming into full leaf now, while ash is only just starting to come out. Local varieties can skew perception of the advancement of spring I reckon.