CryoraptorA303

When the bloody hell did it get to 23°C across the midlands today? Wasn't expecting that at all as here in Kent it's overcast and about 16-17°C. Regional differences are being pushed to their extremes today it seems...

In Absence of True Seasons This is essentially what is predicted, for the SE quadrant to become Csb. Over half of all years here (including last year) already qualify as Csb. It would be a massive annoyance if we receive nearly all of our May rainfall in the upcoming few days, for the rest of May to then be bone dry, as it'll still technically be a wet month, even if it was overall very dry and sunny, essentially like August 2022 for some areas.

In your corner of Hampshire maybe, but summer has been getting sunnier nationally. The wetter thing I think is honestly just a temporary thing as air moisture increases and we get more storms shoved into us. Along a lot of the south coast, June and July have already become notably drier than in 1961-1990. Only August rainfall has increased overall and that's probably just down to strong late summer storms that in future will be pushed back into September as the Hadley cell keeps expanding. Not to mention, in the 1991-2020 period, we have had a few seriously anomalously wet summers that will undoubtedly add to the rainfall totals - if 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2012 are removed from the stat totals then at least a few mm must come off May-July, which would put a lot of the south coast in sub-40mm territory for all three months. I know some will mention a few other offenders but whatever, those weren't anywhere near as wet as those four. In 2011-2040 as three of those four offenders are finally removed from the calculation, there will probably be quite a noticeable drop in May-July rainfall that can purely be attributed to the May-Julys of 2007-2009 being removed.

Wynn D Woo It might not have in the Cotswolds which are uphill and a tad cooler than the lowlands, but in most of the south it has. I wouldn't go as far to say this has been a year without a spring though, March was just very autumnal and April dull and wet. Here the bloom is actually doing relatively well and if May dries up and the Sun comes out a bit without it being too hot then we could keep ahold of a proper spring bloom for a few more weeks yet. Such is the consequence of climate change though, we are going to see less traditionally seasonal weather in this part of the world as the century goes on, instead seeing much more autumnal behaviour in what is supposed to be winter and early spring, and faster transitions to summer-like temperatures without the consistency of summer. This is likely to have profound impacts on flora and timings of bloom, with the autumn fall occuring later (it wasn't fully complete until early December here last year) and the spring bloom being far less consistent than in the past.

*Stormforce~beka* Indeed, it's been an improvement on the last two months, even if it was still dull and wetter than average. For most of the south outside of Cornwall this April will end around 110-130% wetter than average, which is a long way down from the 200+% of February and March, so scaling from that, for the south coast May should be the first drier than average month of the year at around 55-65% average rainfail. There appears to be cross-model agreement on a thunderstorm making its way over the region in the next couple of days which will be expected to bring 10-20mm to the area, so this would imply either the rest of May will have to be notably dry or the thunderstorms will have to be significantly weaker than forecast to end at 55-65% average. Of course, this is the Shareholder's Fallacy, and in reality the weather will do what it wants, but proportionally for most of the south, April was significantly drier than March or February which is a marked improvement.

Unfortunately it's not that impressive today here. 17.5°C at East Malling so not bad for the time of year but it's also quite overcast, and at 77% humidity it's uncomfortably muggy as well. Reminding me of mid-May 2011 a bit.

Bear in mind, it's a very long distance for the air to travel, so it undoubtebly loses a lot of its heat on the way. Edmonton is also quite far uphill, over 600m, so that will nerf hot air by some margin. Not overwhelmingly, although it is somewhat sunnier than the sunniest parts of the UK. Not to mention, Edmonton is much closer to and has no ocean between it and a large source of very cold air, so it can still be sunny there while also being cold, even later in spring and early summer sometimes. On the inverse, summers in that area are the most wet and humid time of year, so quite often the hotter days get cloudy and muggy quickly. At least, that's how it appears in the stats, a lot of the hot days also have a significant amount of cloud most of the time. Honestly, at a quick look, they seem less common than in London. It seems that it's rare to get more than three or four 25+°C days before being interrupted by a cooler spell that can last at least a few days in turn. You really have to go down to Calgary or further south than that to start seeing a reliable number of 25°C days in the average summer, and even then it's not guarenteed. Really only further southeast in Canada has reliably hotter and sunnier summers than the UK.

The infamous May heat spike that occurs in so many of this year's proposed analogues is coming up, so I'd be inclined to err on the side of a notable warm spell occuring when it's being suggested. All of them that occured in analogues reached at least 25°C, and almost all of them higher, so we can expect at least this warm for at least a day. How much wet soil may nerf the spell depends on how much it's able to dry between now and when it happens. At this time of year the Sun is very strong now, even a few days with a few hours of sunlight would likely significantly reduce the amount of wet soil, and by that point most of the nerfing effect is already gone. Most of the soil here had already mostly dried out until we got another 28mm over the weekend. This did wet things up a bit again but assuming only a few more mm or less falls between now and the spell then you can pretty much guarentee that we'll be back to where we were before it by then with how strong the Sun is now.

Scorcher I hope Saturday is fine, I'm going to a wedding. I'm not really bothered about temps as long as it's 16°C or higher, which seems highly likely at this time of year when any Sun is involved, I just don't want it to be overcast all day or raining.

Northwest NI Different models. Next weekend is still quite distant in terms of forecasting and different models will come up with different answers.

*Stormforce~beka* It's just as nice here, it's been nice all day but especially since around five

Nice day today, especially the afternoon, hopefully this is a sign of change Would be funny if we go from what we've had straight to recording the hottest and among the sunniest May on record, April/May 2020 style I wouldn't put it past this climate. Makes you wonder how hot a June version of May 2020 would get, surely it'd reach 33-34°C towards the end of the month and challenge 2023 for hottest on record overall? I'm aware that May 2020 actually didn't have overwhelmingly warm nights however high SSTs and the extremely short nighttime could start to turn the tide on this with a May 2020 setup by late June perhaps.

raz.org.rain Low-20s sounds more realistic but I wouldn't rule out a suddern turn to high-20s (or perhaps even higher) as we are now coming up to that May heat spike that occurs in almost every other potential analogue for this year, not to mention the current global situation etc..

Scorcher B87 I think the vast majority of it came in that massive thunderstorm didn't it?

Don't rule out a 1989-style turnaround yet.

I don't think any warm lovers were happy with February-April tbh.

raz.org.rain Heatwave as in three or more consecutive days above 28°C, or just a notably warm spell for early May?

Because we can't always have our cake and eat it too, and given the choice I'd take dull and dry over another wetter than average month. A summer 2019-like month with very warm but also wet would be absolutely disgusting, especially given the current air moisture content. Dry and sunny would be ideal but the ideal case isn't always going to happen, so if forced I will take the drier than average month over another wet month.

I would actually take a May 2022 at this point, as at least it was drier than average. To me, getting a drier than average month at the moment is more important than chasing the Sun (cough), considering that we've had far too much rain and we need to get rid of it on the ground. At least May 2022 did have that warm spell in the middle and reached 27°C and had a number of days above 20°C, this would be a huge improvement on last May temps-wise. Last May really did feel more like a warm April than a sunny May in the SE. Overall the outlook is quite optimistic, I think May so far has a good chance of turning it around. Aside from the warm weekend mid-month, today has been the sunniest day here probably since January.

Scorcher I've mathematically calculated that a Coningsby in late May could produce >36°C temps if the epicentre is on the hottest stations in the country, i.e. the south east. This suggests that temperatures above the 32.8°C record should be very easy to produce in this day and age and around a 1-in-5 year occurence, assuming a Coningsby copycat in late May is around a 1-in-100 year event. It's likely an incredible string of luck that we have not seen temperatures above the respective records in May and June. I think we'll honestly end up in a Montreal situation and have an extreme May heatwave before we see one in June, and we have a higher May record than June record for some time. It's possible for both records to fall in a single year, if the heatwave is part of a July-August 2020 style double-prong, with the first phase in late May bringing 34-35°C and then the next phase in early-mid June bringing 36-37°C. Such an event would be very likely to occur during a La Nina year due to the frontending that tends to encourage (outside of triple), but frontended extreme heatwaves have occurred in El Ninos such as 1957 as well.

B87 Well, at least winter on both ends would be cold and snowy. Although having that summer in the same year would be a big problem, I agree. Terrible harvest, greatly delayed spring etc.. Has there been a year on record where spring never began and the flora didn't even bother for that year? I know 1816 is likely to fit in that category but any others in known history?

B87 It's a shame that Heathrow wasn't recording during the early 60s, as March 1962 was even colder than 2013. 1888, 1892 and 1962 were all colder than 2013 nationally, so it'd be interesting to see what Heathrow would have recorded if it was live during these springs. 2013 being the fourth coldest March on record since 1884 is extremely impressive though, one has to assume that it would've been the hands-down coldest pre-1990. Certainly 1/100 year if not multicentury level. What a shame that such an event will likely not be repeated in our lifetimes.

Nope, looks like we got Kented. The Sun is still out now.

raz.org.rain Not to mention, it looks like the bright orb in the sky will be paying a visit most days. It certainly has this evening.

raz.org.rain They must hate 1975/1976 and 1989/1990, both infamous pairs of hot summers