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ECM clusters possibly holding a bit more promise this morning longer term: Day 10 Day 12 Day 14 There's a very decent option 1 in there. A bit too much variance to have any confidence in anything, but if a good outcome is showing at least it's a possibility!

Literally my feelings too. We're just swapping 11c and rain for 15c and rain. Rolled in glitter...

It'll be interesting to see what happens after mid month. Yesterday's 12z GFS had AAM going through the roof. ECM a lot more sluggish in the recovery than forecast a few days ago, so a switch from low pressure dominated weather to something more settled could take a bit longer to arrive. One to keep tabs on. Depends on how active the MJO phase moves through the Pacific.

ECM op run is also disappointing. Only good point is that the 850 temps recover and cut off the nagging cold feed of air. Temps around the mid teens and closer to where they should be. Sunday looks warm in places with 18/19c possible.

ECM 12z run is utterly horrific and should come with a health warning.

ECM mean anomalies holding a little hope as we go further into May: 3rd-10th May 10th-17th May 17th-24th May Our old summer friend the Azores high showing its hand in a couple of weeks time? Let's hope so!

Looks like we're going to have to wait a while longer. The usual pattern looks like setting up towards mid month: Any ridging and warmth is way out to the east, while NW Europe and the UK sits parked under a trough. Hopefully after mid month we start to see things better for the UK. Looks pretty unsettled until then though, and not particularly warm either:

I'll use what all the winter folks say....some say outlier, I say trend setter

Enjoy the rain folks! Could be flooding issues in the SW and W Wales GFS ensembles have quite a few warmer members appearing around day 9/10 with an approaching low briefly scooping up some very warm air: GEM has this glancing blow too:

20c 850 air over Spain and France in early May is quite exceptional. Probably in part due to the fact that North Africa has been baking hot and way above average for a while now. Any plumes headed our way could have extra oomph to them this year (though recent years have hardly failed to deliver on the heat front anyway!)

Atmosphere is quite unstable now...started off blue here but cloud really building now. A check of the radar shows this heading your way, so expect the clouds to bubble up a fair bit. Being so far south you may escape the showers or the worst of the showers though!

Not sure I agree there.... Day 4 - Greenland high Day 10 - Starting to break down Day 13 - gone Day 16 - Completely gone The N Hem profile always looks a bit weaker once the PV disappears for the summer anyway, but that last chart shows pretty low heights for mid May.

@Tamara tends to hibernate in the winter season. I know she moved to Portugal (very lucky!) last year too so that may explain some quietness. Hopefully she will provide some excellent analysis through late spring and summer as usual. I love reading the posts, as do many others.

Any worries of a rainfall deficit and the recent very dry spell are likely to be a distant memory for the vast majority after the next 10 days and beyond. Even the very dry E/SE corner getting in on the soaking.

With the frostiest April for 60 years, I'm not surprised the trees have hidden away for a bit longer this year! Brrrrr

May....or November? A couple of deep lows heading our way on this mornings ECM. High pressure to the north forcing the jet on a more southerly track straight through the UK.

Yes, off with your head! We have 6 months of the year that are dreary, cold wet and miserable....soak up that sunshine! We aren't in California or the Mediterranean, the rain will always come back sooner rather than later here.....and it duly has. Just in time for the Bank Holiday weekend!

@SqueakheartLW also worth remembering that as the seasons change, so do the patterns we want! All winter we dread that flat +NAO pattern....but in the summer as wavelengths change and the jet pushes to the north, a +NAO pattern can be very good for the UK with the Azores high dominating and low pressure pushed into Iceland/Greenland. June 2018 was a very good (although very extreme) example of this: Nothing in the output this morning to suggest anything other than mainly cool and unsettled weather dominating the next couple of weeks,

Looking like the first half of May will likely be in the rubbish bin as AAM falls away and Ely trades start dominating in the Pacific. There are hints that it won't sit around for weeks on end, and by the middle of the month the MJO should move on again and lift AAM to push the trough out of NW Europe. Until that point though, mainly unsettled and probably cool to go with it.

11-12c in May should be illegal we should be at mid to upper teens by then! Average May max here is 17.5c, 11c is truly shocking.

Good time to work! The 6z gfs today has to be one of the worst I’ve seen in ages. Absolute garbage.

Ok - maybe people may think it’s not that cold. Statistically it is though. (image c/o James Peacock):

Nope, you definitely aren't missing anything! I've seen a lot of it too. More than usual. Which is odd as there is clearly no evidence for a May heatwave this far out.

It's been ok when the winds have been light....but most of the time there has been a cold feel to the air due to the wind direction. Out of the sun it's definitely felt cold. Maybe I notice it more than the majority as I start work at 6am, so I've had to cycle through frost and minus temperatures at 5:30am nearly every morning this month! The abundant sunshine has definitely saved it from being a lot worse. If it had been cloudy and cool it would have been truly miserable.

Not even sure it really constitutes a proper warm up....just a return to normal from this ridiculous run of cold weather. No signs of anything properly warm in the outlook either.