Metwatch

Of course! Hope this helps: There was a few instances last year, where one case 19th August that just clipped the south east. The second instance 24th August, had quite a westerly motion to the storms compared to the 19th, but only clipped the south coast. 2nd October was similar to the 24th august in some ways with a mostly westerly influence rather than southerly or southwesterly, but was a bit more widespread interestingly, likely the destabilition and airmass clash occuring further north.

Back to winter tomorrow

Even if the world warmed by several degrees by the early 2100s, I can't really see 20C being reached for low-lying areas of England from around mid November to the end of January (though might be possible for Wales / Scotland due to foehn, mountains etc). Reason being is solar insolation is too weak and without foehn even with a very warm air mass, would likely end up with a inversion or just not enough heating to warm up the surface much. The world will warm up more, very certain of that but the strength of the sun itself, well that cannot be changed by us London almost touched 20C back in mid Feb 1998, so 20c in England by the start of February should be possible by the end of this century.

Hi, If you still need it, I have attached the full access article on this event, though it focuses more on the storms of the afternoon of 23rd of July, there is some discussion on the overnight period. Thunderstorm event of 22nd to 23 July 2013.pdf

Completely agree! Was out in the countryside, cycling, walking etc from mid afternoon to sunset earlier and it was lovely. If there isn't much wind and it's mostly sunny like it has been today, 11C or 21C they don't feel overly different this time of year out in the sunshine. The sun is at the same strength as August UV around 4, with the sun altitude now at 50° which is pretty strong!

@Josh Cool Stundon Not sure about sub classifications of Spanish Plumes but this paper might be of interest relating to various weather patterns and which produce thunderstorms in the 2010s, at least for the UK. There is a brief discussion on plumes though: weather patterns and observed lightning UK.pdf

As much as I would like some more warmth before the month is done, there is a part of me that wants a cooler second half for 1) to get closer to my CET guess of 9.6C and 2) is that well this month as few others have mentioned is undeserving of any warm records given the lack of sun and still a lot of rainfall overall, so I am glad in a way the CET will not end up in the low 11s, high 10s or even now the mid 10s like the wonderful month of April 2020 was.

Done some stat round ups, mainly rainfall and sunshine in post below. Mid part of this April has seen an improvement to the first part of the month. Though could be better, at the same time could also be much worse!

Some sunshine earlier this afternoon, but clouded over in the last few hours, staying mostly dry. I do get the impression given the last 7 days or so April is trying its best to redeem itself here locally. The sunshine hours as follows: 11th April: 3.8 hours 12th: 10.0 13th: 4.9 14th: 5.8 15th: 6.1 16th: 6.0 17th: 6.9 18th: 7.5 Out of around 110 hours of total possible sunshine, give or take a few, there's been 51 hours which is about 45% of available daylight, decent enough. 1st - 11th April had around 34 hours of sunshine in total. Whole month has had about 80 hours now, unlikely to reach the April average of 147 hours, but at least it won't be among the dullest Aprils on records which contained around 70 hours. It's been fairly dry in the same period, just the odd few showers and most of that falling at night or early in the morning. it could be much worse is all i'm saying, and is an improvement to the first 7-10 days of the month. 1st - 10th April had about 37mm, 11th-18th about 12mm.

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.