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WYorksWeather Agreed its too early, but as April is a warming month it would be exceptionally difficult to see us coming much below 9-10C if we're already at 11C mid-month. It would take a very cold second half. The signs are there already that it's going to be well above average, it just depends how this pattern breaks or even if it continues. If we get a whole month of this, it'll gradually warm and we'll finish in the 11s. If we get a cold spell, 9s maybe. If we get a plume, who knows how high?

MP-R The warmer nights thing that keeps cropping up is a red herring too. March had an anomaly of +2.5C and that was +2.4C on the maxima and +2.6C on the minima. Its just been consistently above average with no great extremes apart from perhaps mid-January.

I think what has been rather notable this year so far is how warm we've managed to be despite pretty bad synoptics. It kind of makes you wonder what sort of CET values we'd be hitting if we had perfect synoptics. Its certainly looking like we'll be around the 11C mark mid-month, so at least a top 20 finish looks very likely at that point. A warm spell in the second half and we'll be threatening the record which has already fallen twice in the last 17 years.

CongletonHeat Panels these days work very well even without direct sun. Even in overcast conditions we can be generating 1-2kW at the moment. Today made 15.8kWh alone and over 11kWh exported so a negative bill day despite the crap weather.

raz.org.rain All of the best recent summers have had neutral ENSO conditions for the June, July, August quarter, aside from 2022 which was a weak La Nina: 1976: +0.2 from a strong La Nina 1983: +0.3 from a very strong El Nino 1989: -0.3 from a strong La Nina 1995: -0.2 from a moderate El Nino 1996: -0.3 from a moderate La Nina 2003: +0.1 from a moderate El Nino 2005: -0.1 from a weak El Nino 2006: +0.1 from a weak La Nina 2013: -0.4 from neutral conditions 2018: +0.1 from a weak La Nina 2022: -0.8 from a moderate La Nina Quite a strong correlation. Poorer summers tend to cluster around El Nino or La Nina conditions but there is not a great correlation either way (1988, 2007 and 2011 were all La Nina but then 2012 was neutral). Its one factor of many to consider, but having a neutral state cant hurt it seems. The current forecast for JJA this year does actually suggest close to neutral aswell.

Its a classic southerly-diving jet pattern with a trough stuck over us, chilly north-westerlies into Iberia and then southerlies drawn up into eastern Europe. Its a rubbish pattern for us as we often get a cut-off low stuck over us that slowly fills unless things move.

It is now the second wettest 9 month period on record here. July 2023 - March 2024 has seen 766.8mm of rain. The only period to record more in a 9 month period since 1980 was June 2019 - February 2020 which saw 809.8mm. It then went bone dry after that though, with just 34.2mm in the next three months, which will not happen this time by the looks! For reference, the annual 1991-2020 average here is 659.8mm. Its worth noting the driest 9 month period is slap bang in between these two, which was November 2021 - July 2022 with just 293.6mm.

WYorksWeather The same applies to home batteries too. We got 12.25kWh of LiFePO4 batteries and solar PV fitted in early 2023 and back then they were about £1050 per 2.5kWh and are now about £600. At these sort of prices they can make a huge difference domestically with quite a short payback time. In 2023 we generated 4700kWh, exported 1700kWh and stored/used over 3000kWh of it. Our yearly electricity cost was -£23, saving £1279 in total. This included being able to charge the battery up cheaply from 2-5am in the winter months. You can get a 4kW PV system and 5kW of batteries for under £6k now, so the payback time is very short. If every house had similar it would be a game-changer. Our grid usage was 1245kWh in 2023 and with the 1700kWh we sent out we were basically nearly -500kWh for the year. If governments were serious about net zero there has to be an incentive for people rather than taxing things to change behaviour. If you say to people, we'll give you a £2000 grant towards PV and battery and it'll payback in under 5 years and save you £100s per year on bills, people would take it up. If you say "switch to an EV or we'll tax your petrol/diesel car to oblivion" then the response would be hostile.

Derecho If we get to 13th April at 10.6C, then we only need 11.8C for the remaining days of the Spring for it to be the warmest on record (assuming an 8.1C March). It'll be quite a confusing Spring if that happens, especially if it's dull and wet overall.

LetItSnow! An average March that's 10th warmest in the entire CET series The year seems to be following the post-El Nino script similar to 1998 and 2017. Both had average/cool Aprils and very warm Mays before the Junes diverged.

Metwatch 2023 was better by miles here. Both were wet, but 2020 had just 97 hours of sunshine. It was the dullest of any summer month in this area in records back to 1980 and the only one below 100 hours. It was atrocious.

Roban The farmer across from us hs had similar issues. The fields remain with nothing in the ground as it has been relentlessly wet and the ground partially flooded. There were similar issues in 2019/20 but different in that it went from flooded to parched in the space of two months. I think he just settled on turnips that year and got them up in the November.

Scorcher We've really caught up in the last two weeks aswell. Up to 91 hours to the 29th. The average is 123 hours so with today and tomorrow we should at least reach 100 hours. below average but nothing like as bad as it was looking at mid-month.

baddie This day in 2012 was my wedding day. I couldnt believe our good luck as it was booked a year earlier, fully expecting rubbish weather. Instead it was clear, sunny and warm throughout. It couldnt have been better for the time of year.

8.8C and 74mm Pretty average all around. Tempted to go below average but that's almost certainly a bust these days!

This wasn't that special in this area, Hull recorded 15.0C and 17.8C on those dates. The spell in the middle of April was much more notable with 25.0C on the 15th April, a figure not breached again that year until the first week in July.

8.3C to the 22nd, so we're already 0.2C above the prediction based on the models two days ago posted by @Derecho above. We need about 7.2C in the remaining 9 days to finish on 8.0C.

I think the grass is going to be half a metre high by the time I can cut it. Can't seem to get two dry days together at the moment. I don't think I've had a year where I haven't managed to do it by April, even last year it was done in February.

The pattern looks atrocious now right out until at least the first week of April. I think the best we'll get are three sunshine and showers days Friday to Sunday and then next week looks cyclonic and awful. It would be a bit of a tragic irony if as our climate warmed, the UK got more wet, unsettled weather interspersed with very occasional warm, dry spells (i.e June and September). Still, with a record warm Atlantic there's plenty of moisture and energy to fire up those low pressures our way.

This event was another failure here, just like the first BFTE. We managed just 0.5cm of snow (1.0cm in the first event) and I remember thinking "How can the same bad luck happen twice?". But it did! It was cold though. The 17th and 18th had maxes of 2.2C and 1.6C, which is notable for so late in the month. Apart from 24th March 2013 which saw a max of 2.3C, no other date later than this in the Spring has a low max of less than 3.4C. 4½ weeks later on the 19th April it was 26.1C - the earliest max above 25C on record for us.

Its hard to believe this abomination of a March is likely to be in the top 10 warmest ever. It seems no matter how bad the weather is on the ground we can do it with ease these days. 21 days in and 42.8 hours of sunshine so far here.

Derecho 8.1C would make it joint-10th warmest so as suspected, it could be one of those months that's top 10 but really doesn't feel like it deserves it. It will be quite strange especially if we don't breach the 20C mark, which currently looks likely to be the case. Its also worth noting that no year in those top 10 Marches has had a summer mean of more than 16.5C. That'll be another one to watch out for.

WYorksWeather its quite far off. March would have to be about 9.7C for example to beat the first three months of 1990 (6.5, 7.3, 8.3C for Jan-Mar).

2017 is the second wettest summer here since 1980 and actually came in just 60.1mm lower than 2007. All three months were very wet (200%, 130% and 173% of average) and it is the summer with the most rain days on record (54 days). The only real highlight was the spell just before the solstice. The rest of the summer only reached 25C three times. The longest dry spells were just 3 and 5 days long (16th-20th June and 16th 18th July). It also contained some very wet days indeed: 26.8mm on 6th June, 49.0mm on 28th June, 57.4mm on 8th August.

Weather-history Only 1980, 1987 and 2012 score lower on the summer index here than 2020 in the last 44 years. It was an atrocious summer in this area. All three summer months were duller and wetter than average. July was particularly bad with 49% of normal sunshine, 1.0C below average and 120% of normal rainfall. It is the only month ever to record below 100 hours of sunshine in summer. August had just 132 hours so only 229 hours of sunshine between them. The summer as a whole had just 411 hours of sunshine, beating out 1987 for the dullest on record by 2 hours.