Metwatch

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.

I'd say a little too much emphasis on SST's as if the pattern was almost non stop northerlies, we would still get a cold or very cold month with warmish sea temps; April 2021 a case in point. This month has had constant southerlies to southwesterlies so not too surprising the CET is where it's at currently, synoptics matter a lot; nights have been especially been mild for April. Once we get that pattern change next week with high pressure just to our west, nights should cool down a fair amount and the overall CET back to something closer to average I reckon.

It's possible but quite rare. Need the high pressure far enough north so it doesn't bring frontal cloud to the north of Scotland or high cloud wrapping around the top of the high. At the same time don't want North Sea low cloud coming in so north easterlies need to be pretty much non-existent. End of June 2018 kind of managed it some days due to the perfect placement of the high although even then, low cloud was sometimes present on eastern coasts: August 2022 was fab for England & Wales but for north Scotland fronts always grazed that area.

Final post from last week's trip! First a few from last Tuesday, hiking to the wildcamp spot from Glenridding and the weather cleared up nicely for the evening which gave some great visibility! A sun dog made an appearance then slowly flew to the drone closer to Helvellyn to see a few small snow patches remaining. The North Pennines could be seen clearly as the sun was setting. Was worth staying inside the tents on a rainy Wednesday for a better Thursday. The clouds cleared during Thursday morning then made the hike to Helvellyn. Clouds shrouded the summit a little although the views were great and was nice to have some calm and dry conditions once more! And finally a few from Saturday, exploring some of Borrowdale, by-passing Eagle Crag and with a distant view of I Think Scafell Pike. Very windy but dry & mild with other hikers enjoying their Saturday afternoon as well. A lovely golden sunset to finish that day off. YouCut_20240406_144652368~3.mp4 Possibly I'll come back again in the near future, maybe some point in summer when hopefully things are warmer / drier and everything looking much greener!

Still difficult to say for sure what the CET may end up as, but a finish below 10C seems quite unlikely and anything below 9.5C virtually no chance. So a good bet right now is in the 10-11C area depending on what the high does later next week. If the more colder but at current least likely GFS run did happen then a finish in the high or maybe mid 9s would indeed be possible. EWP shouldn't rise too much now as it turns drier, although it won't be completely dry so that will probably head to around 70-80mm towards the end of the month. Another wetter than average month now a given, but not significantly so, maybe a similar depature from average as January was. First 10 days of this month in the north west of England has been one of the wettest.

Calima continues for the Canarias, with temperatures soaring: Interesting to see Lanzarote the only Island clear of the dust intrusion today:

Managed to warm up nicely once again this afternoon, up to 18-19C. Despite the pretty thick high cloud sun still did its job and warmed things up nicely. Mowed the lawn for the 3rd time this year as well as it had gotten quite long since the last cut over 4 weeks ago. Good to finally be getting more than one day of something warm for mid April unlike last year! A little jealous of the clear skies over France though!

If the renewed blocking doesn't end up drifting too far west, we could end up in a cool-ish but also quite dry and sunny pattern, quite similar to April 2021 (I know @Summer8906 would appreciate that to stop the abnormally early flowering ) Tonight's GFS 12z from next weekend reminds me of April 2021 a lot.

First day of the year today where it genuinely feels "warm" finally. Up to 19C with some decent spells of sunshine but feeling humid; the dewpoint at around 12-13C. Mountains over Wales helping to break up the cloud a bit this afternoon. Feels closer to the end of May, and in the majority of Junes in the first half there can be days several degrees cooler than today!

Not even sure why it's still open to posts, winter is long gone now

Not sure there would be that much in the way of thick cloud given the forecast for those sort of temperatures tomorrow especially in mid April. Should see a fair amount of sun tomorrow, we'll see. Gotta take what we get, and if that means dry even with not much sun, it's an improvement to recent.

Don't often recall it getting milder through the evening in what is now virtually mid of April. Quite the warm sector coming in from the Atlantic tonight but also with a lot of moisture! Up to 17-18C from tomorrow to Saturday.

Lmao i'm just very desperate for something much drier, and warmer than the almost constant 10-14C in the past few months which will finally change here from tomorrow even it it's only for a few days. Of course sunshine would speed up the drying process and be even better, but later this month or in May I think that might just properly arrive

Not too worried if there isn't wall to wall blue skies at the moment. Still a marked improvement compared to recent, and should get the lawn done again this weekend. Later next week could see more high pressure so maybe a lot of us will witness the appearance of the long-awaited dry soils in the coming weeks Not much more than 5-10mm across modelling here and southwards from now on!

A max of only 3.5C in Coventry airport on the 10th before dropping to -3.4C the following night. Only comparable temperature on the 10th April I can see is in 1924 with a max of 3.9C. The April was cold overall; CET of 6.5C the 40th coldest, and an average of 5.9C in Coventry!

Back from a week long camping trip in the Lakes, and as much as I do love the scenery, (posting more photos in the Northwest regional thread in the coming days) the rain was becoming excessive towards the end, especially yesterday and this morning (also not exactly surprised by that). ~40mm fell last night alone near the campsite I was at! Looking at the outlook and I can see an improvement in the near term starting from Thursday; quite mild and somewhat drier, probably cooler again next week but unlikely to be as wet than of recent. I cannot see much in the models that would be on the excellence of April - May 2018 / 2020 yet though. But the Jetstream heading north now a bit and getting rid of that silly Greenland blocking is very nice to see at last for this time of year! Hopefully this is all the start of a slow transition into a stunning May! Everything is looking to become green very early this year, which personally I prefer, but probably not the best for nature itself.

Looking through various webcams on Windy in the southern part of eastern Europe and found this roughly week long difference in Hungary. An incredibly rapid bloom this spring following the warmth. Pretty much an April 2020 repeat here but on steroids!

Back home now, but from yesterday afternoon to the minute I got on the train from Penrith earlier today, that was starting to become a bit excessive with nearly 40mm of rain falling from that system, near the campsite I was at (Chapel House Farm). Incredible how quick it also changed from sunshine to rain yesterday. Made the most of that glorious sunny few hours with another walk to Castle Crag to see the caves and moss-covered woodlands, and getting the drone up over Borrowdale itself. I think i'm still lucky enough to have had the rain fall mostly at night apart from 2 days! Also a few more from Sunday night with the first of 2 walks to Castle Crag, very windy indeed!

Some nice skies tonight looking from the train station car park just as I arrived back home tonight. Couldn't spot any rainbows, but looks like the Coventry airport webcam saw one shortly after taking these: