SunSean

Been a decent enough month overall so far but after the past week of North Sea filth, it's kinda morphing into just another May 2023. Absolutely unreal in places out West but just average in the East. We haven't had a May with average sunshine since 2020 down here which is really silly! For the constant Easterly filth, I'd say May is my least favourite Spring/Summer month because it's normally only ever below average here while often being a sunfest out West. Proper weird month.

May 1st-15th sunshine (Doesn't include 16th) Excellent totals overall so far although the East are getting piled on with North Sea muck now so I'd expect the West side to absolutely run away with it now. They will easily make 300 or near 300 hours I'd imagine. May is the West's favourite month and nowhere in the East can compete unfortunately!

Looks like potentially being another epic forecast fail today like Thursday was. Pretty much sun all day forecast today but the North Sea garbage looks insane so I don't expect any clearance or perhaps a clearing at around 6pm. As is always the case in May, and as it was in May 2023, West side basking in endless sunshine while the East stares at a grey blanket Been a great month overall so far but would be nice to share those unbelievably exceptional sunshine amounts that the West get so easily in May.

Did not expect a zero sunshine day today. Absolutely none of the forecasts suggested that! Despite doing well for sun this month, the West are pretty much out of sight in terms of sunshine levels now after today. The East can't compete with the West in May in terms of sunshine for some bizarre reason.

In Absence of True Seasons Makes a nice change since Spain usually hog all the lovely weather so it's crazy to see us enjoying Spanish levels of sunshine while they endure the usual British climate lol

Personally, I couldn't give a rats derriere about the lack of rainfall, especially after the past 2 years of non stop 50mm+ rain months. We were WELL overdue a sustained dry period & Spring 2025 has been absolutely wonderful! Long may the dry weather continue! In this country, when rain starts cropping up more often, we end up with it being non stop lol. I'd be totally fine with these conditions til October after the past few years lol.

Just popped in to say- Easterlies suuuuuuuuuuck. May has to be the only month where the East is as cloudy as the Shetland islands lol. At least the forecast looks better from Friday. Wonder when the last time was that the East was sunnier than the West in May? Probably going back a decade or so?

reef There is something up with Heathrow & Charlwood early on though as every time I've looked, comparing to my nearest station, Shoeburyness for example, Shoeburyness will get around 0.7 hours on the first morning reading while Heathrow for example only gets 0.2 Either way, i do agree with you that Heathrow likely wasn't the sunniest place in April but as i said, my sun tables aren't to be taken as fully accurate but more as a rough guide and for me, its just a fun side project. If people like them, its cool but if they dont, thats cool too!

reef Yeah, no way am I applying an adjustment to every single station otherwise I'd be there for hours! Already takes me near on an hour compiling all this. Plus if any adjustment is needed, for most it is so negligible that it was easier for me to adjust the biggest offenders (Heathrow, Charlwood & Reading) a bit less than the figure B87 uses so I only have to adjust a handful of stations rather than all 60... Plus, this table is not "official", it's more for enjoyment and to give others a rough idea of what locations did better or worse. In any sense though, I think the way adjustments are used are wrong anyway. If you look at weatherobs, the full hour of sunshine is recorded completely every hour so adjusting that up gives you more sun than is possible in an hour lol. The only adjustments that may be needed are morning/evening obstructions like what happens at Heathrow/Charlwood etc as clearly they don't record the full amount available in mornings but thereafter, they record accurately but it just so happens that it's easier to use a percentage adjustment to these stations for me rather than watching the offending stations on the satellite maps in the morning and estimating myself how much is missing in the morning recording. Also I think people forget that daylight length doesn't mean total sunshine hours. If you have a 16 hour day with wall to wall sunshine, you're not going to record 16 hours of sunshine because the sunrise and sunset light isn't strong enough to be recorded for around 20-30 mins so you'd expect something like 15.4 or 15.5. Adjusting that up wouldn't compensate for "recording issues" but for sunrise/sunset light. I only adjust stations with obvious obstructions. Now to enjoy the rest of the sunshine

danm Yeah to be fair, it disappeared as quickly as it formed! Was expecting it to last hours lol.

Quickest explosion of infill I've ever experienced. From clear skies at 08:40 on the satellite to a massive expansion of cloud covering half the South East at 09:00! Pretty disappointing considering the sunny forecast today but hopefully it can bugger off and allow the sun to shine once more before the grot arrives Sunday onwards! Been an amazing 2 months overall though but a lot of the forecasts still have been so far off accurate, you'd think they were forecasting the weather of another planet.

sunny_vale It's an adjusted figure so may not be completely accurate. I'd probably say it's more in the 259 range but don't wanna change the formula I've used all this time

April 2025 sunshine table Another absolutely glorious month for all yet again! What a beautiful Spring so far. The last 4 Mays in my area have all been around 40 or more hours below average so we're overdue a lovely May down here but.... Surely we can't have 3 stunning months in a row could we? Let's see what the weather brings!

Only real complaint from me so far this month is that every single Saturday has been sunny and the 1 Saturday I get off, plus with a load of my friends coming round, it's forecast to rain all afternoon. Something out there absolutely, undoubtedly detests me lol.

First half of April 2025 sunshine Another great half for all!