Stu_London

The 6z gives an outrun for the 2nd half of the month of about 11.5C, however the final few days are particularly cool and in deep FI, so obviously very unreliable at this point. I think we can be sure of a few falling days and then a steadying, with perhaps a couple of rising days. BTW, tomorrow probably has a better chance of being sub 10C than today - I large chunk of CET land is forecast to have single figure maxes (although in reality they will probably be at least a degree or so higher). Much will be depend on whether temps can dip low enough by 12 midnight tonight, before starting to rise a little later during darkness hours. Edit: Much of CET area is 12-13C at 12noon, so unlikely we will see sub 10 today as 14ish will probably be achieved.

Jimbo and Friends. Apologies from me. For health reasons I won't be able to make it. But have a great time. Someone have a massive burger and a couple of jagerbombs in my honour.

You are probably correct, but a respected poster on these forums once said that a sub 3C CET month wasn't achievable in his lifetime. Shortly afterwards we had 3 such months in the same year and another one in springtime since then. Or course, he may have been correct, he stopped posting before the first sub 3C month, so it's possible he died and didn't see a sub 3C month after all. More likely he was embarrassed and didn't want to eat large helpings of humble pie. Although there is no definitive scientific link between solar minimums and lower temperatures, there is enough circumstantial and anecdotal evidence for me to buy into that the notion that deep solar minimums do effect temperatures (certainly in N Europe) even if the reasons for this are not fully understood. I believe the trend of the last few winters could be a precursor, although just as compelling are the relatively early starts and late finishes to winter we have seen as well as the current short hot summer we are enjoying - which are all arguably features of Solar Minimum driven weather for our part of the world

A little interesting titbit. Between 1778 and 1807, widely accepted as the period of the last (Dalton) solar minimum, there were no less than 17 occasions when the average temperature for July or August was above 17C. Between 1981 and 2010 accepted as the warmest CET decades there were 16 occasions when the average temperature for July and August was above 17C. Therefore as well as a solar minimum offering long cold winters in Northern Europe, they appear to support shortish hot summers too. Happy days.

Did you go to the Crystal Meth place in Wall?

13.7 to the 20th. The GFS 06z would suggest an outcome at month end of 14.1C before adjustments (bang on 61-90 ave) However, most of the warmer days are at the unreliable end of the period, so the risk to the downside of that figure is probably slightly greater than the upside. With the fact that adjustments tend to be downward, I would say 75/25 in favour of being slightly lower than 14.1C Edit: my prediction is based on operational, which might be warmer than the mean.

Sorry to disappoint Jimbo - I'm very much awake!!

10 minutes

Yes it looks like the i40 jam is tornado related. Just saw a car in a field with its hazard lights flashing.

Lots of damage and blocked roads. It seems we were about 15 minutes behind the Shawnee 'nad all the way. Still stuck in this i40 jam. So hope you got off on time.

I40 blocked west of Shawnee. Possibly tornado related. Detour if you can

On our way to Guest inn now

Ok I'll head to car rentals.

At arrivals Tom. You need me to go anywhere or shall I stay put?

At arrivals DFK No sign of Tom Hope he hasn't gone without me At arrivals DFK No sign of Tom Hope he hasn't gone without me

If you think SF's climate predictions were bad, you should have seen some of the things he wrote on the economic thread, when I informed the net weather community that the world banking system was insolvent (several months before the run on Northern Rock).

still can't categorically rule out sub 10C for May.

18z takes Saturday's deluge much further north than the last couple of GFS runs. Anyone know what the other models are showing ? I'd quite like to get my game of cricket in on Saturday , before I head off to join the lads stormchasing on Sunday.

The upcoming few days look set to average between 7C and 8C, which is very cool for this time of year. Tentative signs of improvements later in the month, but a lot could change between now and then.

bring it on

18z has some particularly low minima with air frost once again a possibility in some areas during the next week. Maximas don't get moving north until the end of the week, so we could be somewhere close to 10C moving into the final 3rd of the month There is some ensemble support for a warmer more settled spell in the final 3rd, but this is very much FI at the moment and some fine May spells don't actually have too much impact on the CET as the warm days can be offset by very cool nights, depending on the air source.

annual rolling CET 01.05.12-30.04.12 9.04C

I reckon it is Jan 2010 to Oct 2011. The longest period over 10C is Feb 2001 to November 2008 (although it may have dipped below 10C mid month in one of the spring months of 2006). The highest annual CET in running at month end is 11.63C on 30th April 2007. The lowest annual CET in running at month end is 8.95C on 31st December 2010. The CET in running fell from above 10C to below 9C between November 2012 and early April 2013.

CET 18/04/12-17/04/13 - 9.02C Back over 9C in running. Looking at the immediate future there doesn't appear to be anything too extreme - this will compare against a fairly unspectacular cool period last year that went on until the final 3rd of May. Likely to stay close to the current figure (perhaps nudging upwards slightly). If we fail to get much real heat between now and the final third of May, there is a chance that sub 9C might be achieved again sometime during the period 22/05 to 09/06

GFS 06z projection is 6.6 to the 23rd. We actually get close to that in the next couple of days, however some colder nights will stop the upward tredectory towards the weekend