Sun Chaser

The last time I felt like the weather was properly enjoyable was October 20th, very late in the year but I vividly remember sitting on the grass in 18-19C and clear blue skies. Last week was nice but there was still a chill in the air. I can't wait for next week!!

Our last two Mays were quite disappointing. Hoping for a different this year! On a positive note, we may finally be getting a taste of summer next week with what looks to be a lovely spell of April weather in the high teens and early twenties, with light winds and lots of sunshine. I'm very much looking forward to it!

April 2022 was okay but nothing special, and I didn't like May 2022 at all. Both were dull, with very few days of clear blue skies (April 26th, May 7th, May 27th and that's your lot) and had lack of variety/interesting weather. May was thundery up country but nothing here! In late May especially I still remember feeling cold outside due to suppressed maxima and cloud cover (minima were high though) April 2023, with the coming warm spell, I will probably prefer over 2022! We'll see what happens. I still think April 2020 is so far in its own league compared to other recent Aprils and it will be difficult for this year to reach the same level now. Either way I'm very excited for this warm spell coming up!! Looking good for a possible 20c around April 18th. So it's giving shades of 2018 - a mixed January, a settled February, a snow event in early March, unsettled March, and now a burst of warmth around April 18th. Hope the similarities continue lol

Landing in Bristol airport during torrential rain has to be up there with the most depressing experiences you can possibly have

Not sure what you have against the idea of April 2023 turning out to be a good month lol

Our summer 2021 was good by Plymouth standards, however I think we got basically the same weather as the south east - it just appears better compared to average here than up in London for example To be fair the sunshine in lockdown made a horrible period of life seem a lot less bad, and now when I remember lockdown I remember it with a backdrop of warm sunshine. It also encouraged me to get out of the house a lot more, and I haven't really stopped since. I still find it funny how an extraordinary period of life coincided with such an extraordinary period of weather.

Summer 2020 will forever stick in my mind for how dreary it seemed after such a glorious spring. It doesn't get remembered here just how poor that summer was; possibly its image is saved by it being slightly better in the east and that hot week in August. The rest was an endless stream of days in the high teens with full cloud cover: I vividly remember checking the average maximum halfway through July and it was around 17.5 2021 is remembered as worse when in fact for 90% of the country it was far better than 2020. Not counting the spring of course

Mine will be a lot more recent due to my age lol. I got more interested in the weather around 3 years ago, so I remember weather before 2020 differently to how the stats say they actually were. I always considered summer 2012 to be decent due to spending a few days in Cardiff in July with somewhat hot and sunny weather, and a few Olympic themed garden parties in August with decent enough weather. What I didn't remember was the complete washout that took hold of the rest of the summer, and indeed all of April-December that year. June 2013, I have no recollection of being cool and dull, rather I remember it as a precursor to that stunning July with many days doing PE and playing in the park. I always considered summer 2013 on a par with 2018 until seeing the actual statistics. August/September 2014: I always remembered August 2014 as being a pleasant month - I remember four very wet days (11th and 25th-27th) and the rest, in my memory, was dry and fairly warm. Couldn't be further from the actual truth tbh, though I did spend 1st-7th and 14th-22nd August outside the country so I missed some of the bad weather. I clearly remember a very sunny, hot-feeling day on the 31st as well which in fact only hit 21C here. September I have little memory of weather-wise apart from being dull. In 2015, I was well aware of the poor summer that year but didn't even notice the plume event that summer, which to be fair was a disappointing affair in Plymouth. I remember September and October that year as being very warm and sunny in the main, having spent a lot of time in those months playing with my neighbours out on the street having recently moved house. I now know that September was actually almost 2C below average here, while October was unremarkable. Both were relatively sunny though. Also had no idea how good April was that year, my only memory of that month is from the 24th onwards being very dull and wet. September 2016 is one that I remember being very cool and wet, I started year 7 that September and I remember a lot of breaktimes being washed out and having to spend indoors. Zero memory of the plume on the 13th of that month. In reality it was quite warm! April 2018 I associate with the summer that came after it, possibly the best year of my life so far and so I remember the entire April-July period with wall-to-wall sunshine. My only weather memory that month is of course of the warmth we had just after mid month, what I didn't remember about this month was the much cooler weather that we actually got for the remainder of the month - it was very dull as well. June 2019 is another, similar to 2013, that I remember as much better than it actually was due to the following July. I remember a school sports day (my last) on the 24th feeling very warm, plus sunny days with my cousins on the 1st and 8th-9th, and also a sunny day on the 15th, but strangely little memory of more unsettled days, so going off of that June 2019 sticks out as a good month in my memory. In reality it was rather cool and very Atlantic-driven.

Unsettled for the next five days perhaps... after a dry start and what the models all agree will become a dry warm spell from the 16th, I don't think this will end up being a wet April. Possibly wettest since 2019 since the last three have all been so dry

A lovely easter weekend here. Perhaps a little more cloud around today than I would like but I'll never complain about 16 degrees in early April. Thursday and Friday in particular were stunning! Weather looks like breaking just in time for my birthday, typical of course however good signs on GFS, ECM and GEM runs of not just an improvement but some genuinely warm weather starting around a week from now, some of the more optimistic runs showing 23C! More likely to be a little lower of course but such strong cross model agreement is not to be sniffed at. April 2023 could yet end up being a great month even with what's coming up on the 10th-14th

Judging off what the GFS and ECM are showing, perhaps we only have a week or so to wait until our first 20C...

Definitely not here. Very few trees in leaf at this point, looking like around mid March last year. Weirdly we saw some blossom as early as February due to the settled mild end to winter, but since then very little growth. Soil temps around average here, far lower than 2017 and 2020 but decently higher than 2018 and 2021. At the moment everything looks as I would expect in an average year, and should still be average this time next week after the warm Easter and an unsettled week evening out.

The past two days of weather have been perfect and a godsend after the past few weeks. 16C is good for early April (when the average is 13), with light winds and clear blue skies from sunrise to sunset. Went for a walk in just a t-shirt for the first time this year, yes I was a bit cold but it was refreshing to be able to do that without being in extreme discomfort. Summer is coming people

That doesn't sound like an bad summer for these parts wouldn't complain, especially if the Atlantic dross was restricted to just 4 weeks as it was in the winter just gone. Certainly sounds a lot better than recent summers like 2015/2016/2017/2020 where we had weeks and weeks of endless cloudy days in the high teens with a single heat spike that was far lower than 36c. As much as I love heat, if it's dry and above 21c I won't be complaining. December for me was extremely cold, two weeks of endless ice and my hands freezing up certainly felt very wintery. I suppose the summer equivalent would be heat in the high 20s/low 30s which... sounds amazing to me? If you're looking for -20C I think you're in the wrong continent

December 2022 was one of the coldest spells for years. I hear Sheffield did very well for snow in March as well. You must've had your fix surely!!

Tuesday clearly a terrible day to be having a garden party as I planned... typical We seem to be regressing back into March come Monday, but the GFS keeps trying to load up some warmth from around next Saturday. We can only hope Still time for April to turn out well

I suppose but that was only really the final day, possibly final two days further north. 14th-28th March was very sunny and had maximum temperatures far above average in the main

This is exactly why CET is not very representative of how "warm" a month feels. Cloud can keep minimums up by several degrees, bringing up the CET despite lacklustre maxes. I think everyone would say that March 2022's second half was significantly better than March 2023's, due to much higher maximum temps, however clear skies meant a lot of frost during that month so it was overall colder. This is especially evident in the spring, though can apply at any time of year - for example June 2007 (wet) has a higher CET than June 2022 (quite sunny and had two hot spells), and May 2022 (dull) has a higher CET than May 2020 (sunniest month on record).

Never seen such strong agreement from any ensembles for warm and dry this far out? Really is a marked and consistent increase in the mean 850s from day 9 onwards, usually the mean in FI is a flatline... and with very few precip spikes at this distance. Good signals for the second half of April on the GFS 12z ens Every single member is agreeing on some level of high pressure influence at day 13... very far away but such strong agreement is one to watch. For me the ensembles are much more telling at this distance than the ops.

I'm 67kg which google says is about 10 and a half stone (and 6'0 so I'm pretty lanky) and I feel the cold more than anyone I know haha But I'm also the one, when it's 35C outside, enjoying every minute while everyone else is moaning

I was close to saying with the exception of 2014, but we had to pay for a good March-July period with a terrible August and with the preceding winter being the complete grimmest of my life weather wise.

In my lifetime, 2012 is the obvious option but 2015 has to be up there too. In March-September, only April resulted in a good month - not overly warm but sunny and dry at least. March was a borefest, May/July/August were cool and Atlantic dominated. June featured a fair bit of high pressure and was rather sunny here but still very much on the cool side, only one day reached above 23C here! September I don't remember well but apparently was very cool as well. The entire season had ONE day above 25C here, on June 30th. 2016 a potential contender with a particularly awful April and June, saved by a decent (not amazing) May and August and a 3 day plume event in July. Everything else was forgettable. Also only four days above 25C this year which is still pretty poor. I see a lot of moaning about the weather lately on this forum but I'm so glad we're out of the dark days of 2012-2016 when good weather was a lot harder to come by.

So happy to see the back of that awful month! Long may the sunshine continue.

Met Office nearly always forecasts cloud even in high pressure... I appreciate their realism but it does often turn out wrong, at least for here

Beautiful weather today!! Only a t-shirt and jumper kept me going all day, 14C and sunny is totally good enough in early April. Felt like spring for the first time in a while, and I loved every minute as we had clear skies from about midday. I love the feeling of not being cold!! I'm happy today More of the same for the Easter weekend as well! (though it looks to be wet on my birthday which is rare and rather annoying)