LetItSnow!

WYorksWeather Well, I don't really think the weather (or indeed the universe) really has a balance that could make sense to (relatively) pea-brained humans. The Earth's time-scale is incredibly large, way larger than our existence let alone our records. What we percieve as an unusual frequency may not be unusual if we had a larger scale of monthly records we could analyse over tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of years. Then there's the fact that we tend to search for patterns to make sense and of course the planet doesn't have a brain like we do. What we think is random tends to probably be far more organised than we realise. There are only global drivers and I suppose chance that steer the weather. Perhaps their was a particular thing going on that promoted excessive wet weather between 1875 and 1883 despite lower global temperatures. Likewise, there may come a time when there may be something that promotes persistent high pressure over a similar time frame may promote high pressure over and around our shores despite warmer global temperatures and a predisposition for wetter weather.

B87 -1.9C below the 1991-2020 average, but completely equal to the 1961-1990 average, as stated. Heathrow (Greater London) UK climate averages WWW.METOFFICE.GOV.UK Heathrow UK climate averages Fascinating to see the changes over time, isn't it?

Something interesting on the latest run of the GFS is how close the 15C line is from us. A slight adjustment could see the UK under some truly very warm air. Interesting that the 15C line is usually associated with the hot spells in the iconic summers of the 20th century so to see that it's flirting with us in early April is a little concerning! Times truly are changing... No doubt this very warm air is fuelling the low pressure due to the temperature differences. April power showers...

WYorksWeather I mean, yeah. I was only looking at the raw figures though, not talking about my perceptions. I didn't categorise summer 2023 as poor as I don't like humid, oppresive heat so it never bothered me. I'm happier when it rains than when it doesn't.

B87 Funnily enough the Heathrow average maxima for April 2021 is only exactly average to the 1961-1990 average but -1.8C below by night.

To be fair, the extreme SST anomalies even for the current climate meant that the month was far warmer than the same synoptics would have been even a year or two earlier. This point is also made a little void by the fact most of July 2020 was cool with the C.E.T. hovering in the 14s/low 15s for most of the month. It's just that expanding heat/heights to our south make those southerlies pack so much more of a punch that it's hard to escape their influence as the mean westerly flow in summer is now probably becoming more south--westerly as the Hadley Cell expands. But if we saw the same Atlantic dominated synoptics of July 2023 repeat in the 2025-2030 timeframe with more normal SSTs then I think it would be cooler than 16.1C. But as stated, pressure from the south is making it more and more difficult to avoid southerlies in the summer.

Summer8906 I haven't finished scrolling through the data but for the overall UKP series, there was a 13-month period from January 1872 to January 1873 where every month was above average, most notably so, though different decadal average may mean some teeter around average. January 1872 140.2 February 1872 88.2 March 1872 84.9 April 1872 69.1 May 1872 66.2 June 1872 100.0 July 1872 122.9 August 1872 80.8 September 1872 104.1 October 1872 149.5 November 1872 140.7 December 1872 138.3 January 1873 109.1 1873 and 1874 proved to be dry years meaning that the rest of 2024 or at least 2025 and 2026 are likely to be less wet, though in the warmer, wetter era perhaps less likely to swing to notably dry, but it is possible. Also for extra information, that was just before the extremely wet period I spoke about before that lasted from 1875 to 1883 which actually averaged a little wetter than the past ten years which have been unusually wet. It shows that just because you have one period of extreme rainfall it doesn't mean it won't keep swinging that way. You could argue that the atmosphere swinging to an unusual extreme for the time shows than swinging to an unusual extreme of the other type, aka for us, dry, could happen - or it could compoud the likelihood for a similar spell to persist into the rest of the 2020s and early 2030s but even more excessively wet due to extra moisture. The ultimate answer is that no one knows. We know the forces at play but we don't know how they'll play. It's sort of like sports really; you might know who's playing but you don't neccesarily know who's going to win. Coming from someone aversed to sport that is.

raz.org.rain Scary that +2.5C above normal feels average nowadays! I don't have sunshine statistics at hand but March 2024 feels grimmer than March 2023. I'm also unsure of rainfall anomaly distribution so far but is it one of those times where even though last year was wetter for the UK overall that this March is wetter down south? Apparently Heathrow is about 5mm away from beating the March rainfall record set in 2001.

Metwatch Just don't read the usual dregs of thinking in the comments... Gotta love those "dry, arid 1960s summers".

raz.org.rain I do remember that! And admittedly my hopes for a cold winter lead me to being more open to the idea. There were so many drivers that pointed towards it to be fair that that is what grew my belief that it could have gone cold rather than any long range models. Indeed when we first turned cold in early January and the models were playing with extending it, I thought perhaps we could be in for a 1985/1986 lite type winter where it starts very mild but gets progressively colder, but by early February I knew it was a bust. Even the Met Office played into it which I found unusual. Because January had been very changeable (I still think their review is odd and paints the month as extreme for its contrasts is rather strange) they were talking about how they thought February would see more of the same. They definitely were more open to cold in their longer range forecasts this past season but it all came to zilch.

WYorksWeather An exceptionally wet April really one to watch out for. The succesion of lows at least in the reliable range would be remarkable for December let alone April. Despite potentially bringing issues, it's fascinating from a meteorological standpoint. EDIT: Also, looking at those charts and it looks like the lows are tracking a little further south than they looked like a few days ago. Is this a trend to perhaps something less mild? Either way, whether mild or cool, it will be extremely wet.

WYorksWeather Though I don't believe in the CFS forecasts, such a pattern isn't totally cuckoo as you could have a trough (not shown on the map but likely to be there) to the west/southwest and persistantly high pressure to the east giving a mean southerly quadrant flow with a lot of mild south-westerly unsettled weather with unexceptional daytime highs but warm lows and then have just one decently very warm spell and you've easily got a very warm May on your hands. Indeed I feel like a warm, wet May is more common to achieve than a warm, wet April.

damianslaw kold weather I agree with that 100% actually. It's easy to forget how unsettled March and April were at times and even May 2018 wasn't excessively dry across parts of England from just how thundery the month was in the latter half. It makes sense that in the north that wouldn't seem so obvious.

WYorksWeather I forgot to add that I don’t believe April 2024 will be the one to do it. My CET guess for example

BlueSkies_do_I_see While I agree with the sentiment that it’s much harder, I disagree with this. February 2018, March 2018, November 2019, July 2020, January 2021, April 2021, May 2021 and December 2022 show it is still possible and even in a warming world our local SSTs will vary between years. It’s not too crazy a concept to me that 2024 could have a below average month. The persistent, exceptional warmth will eventually break even if only for a little while.

WYorksWeather Perhaps a greater deviation of annual rainfall from Scotland and the south of England by this theory. This summary is interesting. I've thought that summers of the future may swing wildly between extremes of dryness and wetness between summers; summers like 1976 followed by summers like 2012. A more blocked pattern in summer doesn't always guarantee it will land in a hot position. But basically sounds like rain is the name of the game. Interesting that the Hadley Cell isn't taken into account for winters. Perhaps even AGW will never overpower the mighty Atlantic. Extended cold season probably just means extended autumn... Though I have wondered that if winters were more blocked in Europe, that even though the earth would be warmer, less power from the Atlantic may allow cold pools to develop over Europe? Cuz in my head, many a mighty cold pool in recent years has easily been swept away from the Atlantic and sent warm air bathing over Europe. If the Atlantic was weaker then maybe Scandinavian highs and such would last longer and therefor be able to pack a punch. We know with warming of about 1-1.5C we can still see cold pools develop of an extreme intensity so maybe they would fester over Europe with little forcing. Overall trends do show that UK rainfall tended to be dryer when it's colder so it makes sense for it to be wet when wetter. We've not seen any proof of the more blocked winters yet... Apologies for being all over the place but no one knows for sure anyway.

SunnyG To be fair we did have some very mild days around the middle of the month but my memory is saying they weren't all that bright. Do I dare bore members of this website with a third set of predicitons?

I suspect there will be a lot of cloud and rain associated with low pressure next week but if the wind does swing to the south and there are any sunny spells then no doubts in my mind parts of Kent and East Anglia could reach the upper teens Celsius, on the assumption the model is undercooking the temperatures. Projections of where the low will be could make the difference between a pleasantly warm spring day and an absolute washout so perhaps one to watch, though don't get your hopes up. I predict low pressure will have the ascendancy surely due to the atmosphere looking very juicy in NW Europe next week.

Metwatch Wish that the Met Office hadn't stopped doing their in depth reviews and surveys in the early 1990s. Indeed when it comes to the Monthy Weather Reports there is an odd gap at least in searchable data from 1994 to 2000.

Checked and I was right as for about two days we had this lovely warm ridge We had another short lived warm spell on May 6th too but generally the spring was very cold. I remember it well.

I feel like we'll tick down somewhat into 2025 and maybe even 2026 if we go into La Niña and lose some of this water vapour effects and maybe that'll give a false sense of semi-normality but it makes you wonder if we get another Super Niño between 2027 and 2040 how warm that could tip the scales.

Summer8906 April 2013 is a month with interesting variety from memory. The month started completely frozen and I remember being in the back of the car on the 4th with gale force, I think north-easterly winds, driving snow and no vegetation. Could have been a mid-January winter storm. However, I remember warm sunshine late in the month, so much so that we drove with the top down. It was a gloriously sunny afternoon and warm from memory with it being our first day in the low 20s, think it was the 23rd. Didn't last long before it went cold again but that couple days stopped the month from being extremely cold.

Crystal ball? More like plastic cube. April's guess is already very unlikely!

kold weather The north poor/south ridgey type summer further fuels my feelings of a 1998 type summer Summer8906 Pretty sure it was generally quite wet albeit with normal interuptions from April 1993 to February 1995. 1993 was a very wet year with 1013mm and 1994 had 1050mm. Probably why, along with better infastructure, the extreme drought of summer 1995 wasn't a hazard like 1976 was. Of course the biggest difference being at that time there was a stable cycle between drier couples of years and wetter ones whereas now the die is loaded in favour of wet... just like in older, colder, times it was loaded to dry. I really do think though this will let up soon... but soon could be second half of April or it could September; first week of September knowing the sardonic nature of the UK climate.

Summer8906 Locally April 2023 was very wet as was the opening ten days or so of May. If high pressure hadn't taken over in the second half of May then it would have been an extremely wet spring, but seeing as the summer before had been so dry and the winter wasn't overly wet, I don't think it was too bad. Plus, my own preferences enjoy it. Indeed I don't remember spring 2023 feeling all that gloomy. March 2024 has felt gloomier but perhaps that's a mind set thing. Checking the outlook for the next ten days, it still shows a lot of low pressure but with that mild southwesterly element. Funny how, particulalry in spring and autumn that a south-westerly and its polar opposite, north-easterly, can bring some foul conditions. Northeasterlies at least have the benefit of winter/early spring/late autumn snow. The long term average for April is 58mm and I can see 2024 surpassing that. If we have a very wet first half then probably 50-70mm at least nailed for the UKP. I sense volatility and expect heavy rain, and particularly thunderstorms, will be the name of the game this spring, though I think May 2024 will be the most likely to have a hot week. I feel an early summer this year.