Metwatch

Last April into May was similar too before it turned drier through mid May. It does appear the short lived trend of drier Aprils this century is coming to an end with the second April in a row with rainfall near average / wetter than average now. If April 2025 isn't dry then that's an era of recent drier Aprils over and done with completely!

Alderc 2.0 British Isles plotted monthly summaries - current month WWW.MET.READING.AC.UK UK British Isles weather summary of month

Don Combined with the snow in March, I would go to say it's one of the best springs for variety in many years. Almost a continental like spring with a defined change from cold - > hot & thundery!

Comparing the end of February to today, the area next to the River Sowe in the city. Certainly an improvement in areas exposed to more sun but some paths still muddy such as below, so I suspect it's mostly the stronger sun doing most of the work rather than much in the way of dryness. This time In April 2020 or 2021 everything would have been bone dry, miss those months! We really do need another 2-3 weeks of virtually no rain to get close still!

Plumes are overrated these days. They never tend to deliver thunderstormwise round here, and are over in 2 days. Often do better for thunderstorms from unstable north westerlies to south westerlies, or even south easterlies that aren't particularly hot. The longest and most pleasant warm, dry, sunny spells are from overhead high pressure systems as well.

2020 by far. Though 2018 was nice, I don't have much other memories other than the warm thundery end. Meanwhile 2020 was bone dry, plenty of sunshine and pleasntly warm which made it one of my favourite months of all time. Yes there was a lack of thundery action in 2020, but the following June sorted that out. The lockdown made it even better as well given how quiet everything was.

A brutal looking reanalysis chart just 2 months away from the summer solstice and when temperatures well into the mid 20s can be possible in other Aprils. Trevor Harley's summary of this month: Some of the maximum temperatures 14-16th, would be notable even in mid winter these days!

Meanwhile the first half of this April alone...

To me it felt mostly like October or a mild November, as was the rest of the winter apart from the 2 weeks in the middle of January. For Febuaries to feel spring-like they would be drier and sunnier while still mild. The best example of this here was February 2023, but a lot of Feb 2019 felt like spring and similar with the second half of Feb 2021. Abnormally early flowering is just a byproduct of it being very mild which might make things look like spring has arrived early, but the feeling of spring in the air is still non-existent if it's dull and wet. I'm sure similar happened also in December 2015 which almost no one would have called that spring-like, more just an extension of autumn.

That's what facinates me a lot about April. The sun is as strong as late summer, so don't need a particularly warm airmass to see temperatures shoot up, but at the same time there's still a lot of cold air left in the Arctic from the winter so that can easily spill down to the UK, well into the end of month, such as that was the case in April 2016. Cold spells are more common than many ordinary folk may think for this month. Searching through the forum ( can be done like this: ( https://community.netweather.tv/search/?&q=april&type=forums_topic&quick=1&nodes=40&search_and_or=and&search_in=titles&sortby=relevancy ) and it seems April 1892 had the most insane warm to cold contrast: April 1966 had some potent spells too which if a repeat was to happen in modern days I think would be quite the shock. Also a few topics on April cold and snow falls in more recent years:

Completely agree with this part! The weather doesn't care about our preferences or if we've been suffering after many long period rainfall records broken in the last 18 months. However it can't stay the same forever, the general pattern reshuffles every few weeks to every 2-3 months. And even in the last 12-18 months being so wet, dry spells have still occurred; i.e the very dry February 2023, Mid May to late June, early September, early October and mid January this year, but we've had much more in the way of wet periods overriding the drier spells. Another reshuffle of the synoptic pattern is now taking place with high pressure building near the country then likely transitioning to a -NAO (Greenland - Iceland high pressure block) so we are entering a drier but coolish next 7-10 days, though still not completely dry. Given there hasn't even been a drier spell since mid January,, there should in theory be a longer one in the next few weeks, but when exactly no one really knows. Most likely it should happen in May some point or into June. It would be very weird if by the time we are heading into mid summer and there hasn't been a good 10-14 day spell of virtually no rain for most of the country.

What would be quite peculiar is if the second half of April (15th - 30th period) could have a total lower CET than all of February or March, certainly possible I reckon and maybe the first time of such occuring since records began

The most important thing to keep in mind is how much drier the outlook is. We've finally lost those damp westerlies and south westerlies off the Atlantic. The upcoming northerlies and northeasterlies will carry less moisture, particularly with high pressure still quite close to the country. It's unlikely to be bone dry, showers sometimes in the mix or light patchy rain, but for farmers or anyone (which is pretty much everyone) who is sick of the flooding and non stop rainfall, this is very good to see. The sun is as strong as it is at the end of August now, and with afternoon temperatures in the 10-13C range, that would still feel quite pleasant and accelerate evaporation following any rainfall. Expecting low 20s and no rain through most of April is a very high expectation, and recent Aprils have spoiled a lot of us and exceeded said expectations. April usually isn't a month for something that contains prolonged warmth or non stop sunshine. Though something warmer and sunnier will probably come into May or early summer though, it has to!

Nice sunset to finish off, was quite atmospheric with a lot of colour all around. Spitted for a few seconds too, presuming from one of those decaying showers.

Somehow I managed to miss all the showers today here, so it's been a mostly pleasant day with decent sunny spells. I think it might actually stay fully dry for the next 7 days, apart from maybe Thursday night some patchy light rain but that could weaken before reaching here. Maybe the first dry soil patches of the year in the garden and elsewhere soon

Still managing to avoid the showers somehow which is what I wanted to keep it dry here, but they did look quite threatening to my east about half hour ago.

Daniel* I think those who have went for a CET in the high 9s should be getting more optimistic now, though any guesses below 9.5C, 9.4C still seems unlikely.

A few heavy showers likely with hail (seen a report of hail from Nuneaton) passing just east of here, but my area has managed to stay dry so it's mostly a pleasant mid April afternoon so far. YouCut_20240416_130841037.mp4

Whether it's a month you liked or hated, either way it was quite an abnormal one, cold but dry and sunny. A month I certainly would welcome now following so much rain and cloud, but if I had to choose between 2020 or 2021, April 2020 would by far be my pick. Still saw some convective skies in such a dry month, as northerlies will often spawn showers given the very strong sunshine to be had by April. Most notably had them on the 6th and 11th, with a brief dusting of hail on grass on the 11th. A snow shower on the afternoon of the 6th too.

Snow Cover duration in the Alps is on the decrease, even more so than the mid 19th century, A paper on the topic: Recent waning snowpack in the Alps is unprecedented in the last six centuries WWW.NATURE.COM Snow is an important component of the environment and climate of mountain regions, but providing a long-term historical context for recent changes is challenging. Here, the authors use ring-width data from... The 1950 anomaly might be related to the winter of terror in 1950-51 with a lot of avalanches due to too much snow in a short amount of time. Winter of Terror - Wikipedia EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

Top 10 sunniest Aprils for the UK via Roost Weather: http://starlingsroost.ddns.net/weather/ukobs/ukgraphs.php?type=monthlyregional&field=year&param=Sunshine&region=UK&month=4&anom= And out of interest the rankings for central and southern England area only:

Some from this afternoon. A fab day for some cloudspotting, about as classic of an April sunshine & (hail) showers day as it gets. Although a little chilly for my liking, the very strong sunshine makes up for it! Also some mammatus looking at the Coventry Airport cam when I didn't have the chance to capture them:

A fairly lively morning by the looks of things though the lightning missed my area by 20-30 miles this morning to my east. Rain seemed heavy, briefly woke up around the time the squall hit. Showers with hail mixed in following behind, classic post-frontal cold unstable air setup with the strong sunshine leading to some decent convection.

Poor insulation defintely the main factor. Another reason the lack of sunshine, though I'm in a north-facing semi-detached home so still not the warmest. Haven't put it on yet following recent warmth but likely tomorrow to Weds put it back on a little in the evenings. Although 16th April 1949 might hold the record, 19th April 2018 was probably equally as warm as in 1949 or even slightly warmer given not the best station coverage across the south east back in the 40s with a lot of stations mainly 27-28C looking on RoostWeather. On Torro the 28.9C is better accepted or more accurate than the 29.4C given the star next to the value. Either way a 30C is overdue at the end of April now.

I feel that we have been spoiled a bit with April warmth in the last 15-20 ish years. Typically they're not meant to be months which have much in the way of prolonged warmth going by past stats, especially pre 21st century. 2023 and 2021 of course gave us that pre 21st century April experience with a lack of anything that can be classed as warm following quite a few warm Aprils beforehand. The only other period with several warm Aprils clustered together is back in the 1940s. April 2022, a bit of a forgetten one (I can't remember much of spring 2022 either bar late March and mid April) but that had some decent warmth mid month. This April for some particularly in the south east have also had 2-3 days of warmth in recent days so still continuing to be a trend for the most part.