h2005__uk__

Yes - see below. Just one run of course but the 20C is there! Today's 6z GFS run is a little more conservative, but still has temps up to 16/17C in the south-east on 31 March and 17/18C in the Midlands and south-east on 1 April.

Let's hope the warm spell (which is due to last for several days from Sunday and bring temps in the mid-high teens and maybe even 20C) that the models are predicting doesn't get downgraded in the coming days!!!

It's been overcast almost every morning (if not every morning) here for over a week. Thankfully the cloud has broken up by the afternoon on most days but nonetheless, it'd be nice to have some sunnier mornings!

Yes, aside from the brief warm spell two weekends ago, most days have struggled to get into the teens temperature-wise. Some models are currently in general agreement of a warming-up at the end of the month with temps into the mid-teens, possibly even reaching the high teens during the first week of April. Too far out to nail down though.

I recorded a high of 6.6C today. That's the coldest (daytime) maximum for me since 22nd February.

The cloud took longer to form than predicted and it also left quicker than predicted! So a pretty sunny day which was a nice surprise.

It seems like potentially a good idea to get a rough measurement of the amount of sunshine. Wouldn't the sensor take a while to cool down if the sun goes in though, meaning you may find it takes a while to register any cloud cover?

Essex Weather Centre (and WeatherPro) were forecasting almost continuous sunshine this afternoon, but there's been a lot of cloud around and there's total cloud cover now (despite the forecast saying sunshine!).

Probably a random computer error with no human influence!

Ah fair enough! I've compared the max temp charts though for the same run and a particular point, and there are still differences. Am I being stupid again?

Maybe I'm being stupid, but I compared the GFS temperature charts on here and on meteociel.fr for the same time, based on the same model run, and the temperatures they show are different - see example below. Why is this?

Great Yarmouth recorded 18.0C at 3pm today, whilst Writtle recorded a max of 17.1C.

And me too. Definitely felt like spring has arrived!

Is there any meteorological evidence to suggest that we can be "due" a certain type of season? Or is it just based on probability?

Apologies for the IMBYism of this post, but I was just looking back at the max temps for summer 2012 at Andrewsfield in Essex (nearest MetO station to me, bar Writtle which doesn't have a publicly available archive). What struck me is that late July and August was better for warmth than I remembered, with a two-week spell in August where temps were in the mid-high 20s on nine occasions. 30.8C was even recorded on 18th Aug, whereas Andrewsfield didn't hit 30C even last year (and neither did my back garden!). I remember last summer being good for sustained overall warmth but there was little in the way of extreme heat. Personally I'd be happy if this summer was a bit cooler than 2014 but had a few more 'scorcher' days - more interesting from a meteorological POV in my view!

*deleted - wrong thread*

Are we going to get a Model Banter, Moans and Ramps Spring/Summer 2015 thread soon?

The gap at the top was designed to maximise airflow but I may have overdone it - I'll experiment with closing it. Might also try putting louvres inside. It's about 1.5m off the ground so a suitable height.

Done a bit of digging and it seems MetO favour black inside for plastic screens, but white inside for wooden screens is still the norm although having black inside wouldn't do any harm. It's thought the reason being is that the plastic screens can have a degree of translucency. Source - http://www.uktrail.com/colchat/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=770 So I may paint the inside of my screen white and add some extra plastic louvres on the front. I suppose I could paint the reverse of the louvres black but I imagine that'd be pointlessly fiddly!

I read somewhere else that the official screens are painted black inside to absorb any heat that does get in rather than reflecting it onto the sensor, but I'm not sure. It's actually a couple of metres away from the tree - it looks closer in the photo. Airflow is actually pretty good where it is. I considered moving it further away from the tree to avoid potential climatic interference by the tree, but then I'd run the risk of the temp being influenced by the nearby house and/or shed if I moved it away. I can't have it too far down my garden otherwise the wireless signal can't reach the station. On the subject of a fan, wouldn't the heat generated by the fan motor distort readings?

I have a small DIY Stevenson screen, which is made of 17mm thick wood painted white outside and black inside. There are vent holes in the wood and on the outside there are white plastic louvres to add protection from sunlight. The box doesn't get much direct sunlight due to shade from my house and nearby trees. However when it does, usually in the afternoon, I suspect the sun influences the temp a bit because when the sun moves away from the box, the temp sharply drops about 0.7C in 15 mins or so. Could anyone advise how I could further protect the sensor from the sun's effect? Would another layer of plastic louvres help? See photos of the box below. Thanks!

Writtle, 15th March

I like snow and ice in deep winter, but once it reaches March I start to look for warmer weather and the first signs of Spring. I know wintry weather can happen in March/April but it feels out of place and the warmer sun means it's (generally) less of an event. Meteorologically-speaking, winter ends tomorrow - meaningless in terms of Mother Nature of course, but it's a great psychological milestone.

Yes, that happened widely across the UK, although it happened at night and was associated with a warm front which brought quite a bit of rain some hours later. So whilst the mercury proves it's already reached 15C this year, it wasn't the daytime, spring-like 15C that we normally hit sometime during late Feb or March.

It was around this time that the press were reporting we'd have 10 years of summers like that. Then 2013 was the warmest summer since 2006 and 2014 was a pretty decent summer too.