Wildswimmer Pete

A much better day, but still with that chilly NWesterly we just can't shake off. Managed an hour's sunbathing in the back garden, first time this wretched May. I understand today we managed the dizzy heights of 15C, but at 10pm I was surprised my outdoor sensor is reading 13.8C, up to yesterday at around 10pm we were well down into single digits. The sycamore in front has only just begun to produce the first few leaves while most of the buds are tightly closed which goes to show how cold it's been.

To go back a lot further, just after that winter, on my birthday (late April 1963) we experienced driving sleet and hail under grey skies while we were shopping in Liverpool City Centre. However three weeks later in mid-May '63 we had a literal heatwave for over a fortnight, one of the warmest Mays I've experienced. However on my brother's day of birth in May '57 it snowed. From my highly subjective memory, my junior and teen years (1950s and '60s) saw generally springlike Mays with at least a few warm spells. Unlike this May.

Showery all night and this morning but currently long sunny intervals. At 13C temp is still significantly below normal and nothing better in sight. Of course the current May Monsoon will inevitably lead to the June Monsoon with no improvement in the weather.

Looks like the Anomalous Northwesterly has already set in for the rest of "summer". For the past few years while everywhere else has been warming up, a persistant tongue of cold licks down from the Arctic to cover the entire UK. Wherever the Jet Stream is situated, it dives down to circle the UK then loops back up north.

Breezy, showery and cold - Liverpool ATIS currently reporting 10C. Is this late May or late March?

Yet another cold, mostly grey day with temps in low teens at best. Liverpool ATIS reports just 12C @ 17.20Z - on a mid-May day teatime. When will these depressed (and depressing) temps give way to something like spring, let alone summer?

Another January day in May. Heavy rain and a miserable 10.1C after a very cold night @ 3.8C. So dark I need my room lights. Looks like our brief warm spell anticipated for the weekend has already evaporated. Four and a half months of barely double digit daytime maxima while the night frosts continue.

Wet overnight but at least mild. Mid morning dried up with 16C on my outdoor sensor. Currently sunny intervals but a stiff breeze. Looks like double digits overnight possbly for the first time this year. Possibly up to 18C tomorrow before we return to whats now the norm: low teens and chilly nights.

A dreary, cold day more like January. Currently light rain and 8.9C

Yet another winter day - 9C on what's alleged to be a mid-spring day. But for the warm blip a couple of weeks ago, we've endured daytime maxima of mostly 7 -11C since the end of February. A cold winter, and it looks to be a chilly spring as well. Even during that short warm spell we still had overnight minima around freezing. Be nice to to be switch off the heating and enjoy a mild night with the bedroom window fully open. I'm still using my electric blanket - in May!?!? Nothing springlike let alone anything remotely warm on the horizon either. Looks like low teens at best at least for the next fortnight.

Stoke is near the end of the Peak District. From Frodsham Hill I can see Stoke, and the Cheshire Gap. The problem you have in Shrewsbury is being directly in the firing line of the Cheshire Gap. Anything coming in on a Northwesterly crosses the Cheshire Plain and funnels straight through the Gap and of course a NW'ly is most likely to be carrying less than ideal weather. As I'm basically new to this site, I apologise for my sometimes odd grammar - stroke. For the same reason I sometimes tend to be terse, because it can cost me a lot of effort to write prose. For some reason the spellchecker doesn't seem to work while posting here.

Going from memory, I'm sure the lowest lowland temps occured at Shawbury on the Shropshire plain. Again if I remember correctly the lowest overnight mins were around -26C shared with a Highland location (Braemar?)

For me this winter has turned out exactly as forecast: average with a cold heart. Despite I'm a bare-skin winter swimmer I hate winter and hopefully the next couple of days signal the end of winter. My local swimming lake, Hatchmere (Cheshire), has been ice-covered for almost all of January and much of February which is quite unusual. Of course my view is highly subjective. The only lying snow I encountered was around New Year, and the attached pic shows how I saw out 2014.

Sunshine recorders record the total sunshine received at a given location. Unfortunately during recent summers most sunshine has occurred in the small hours while many if not most folk are still in bed. By breakfast (8-9am) the grey lid has already slammed down, while the cloud melts away in the evening leading to another cold night. That's why our subjective impression of daily sunshine doesn't tally with official sunshine stats. Where I live we have the same problems as Bristol, the same maritime location, and exposure to prevailing westerlies coming in across the Atlantic (or in my case, the Irish Sea).

Unfortunately in my area (North Cheshire/Merseyside) June was mostly overcast and chilly, and July looks to be panning out the same. I remember the hot summer of 1959 but I was only nine. Other than that 1976 was of course the hottest summer in living memory. Sadly, the now established pattern for summer seems to be frequent incursions of Pm on N/Westerly winds leading to chilly nights before cloud bubbles up just before breakfast which then infills all day until evening when the cloud melts away to leave yet another cold night. Looking at the temperature charts summer temps have arrived to more northerly parts than the UK, but there seems to a semi-permanent tongue of cold air licking down from the Arctic to cover the UK.