[Favourite and least favourite springs]

As we head well into March, it got me thinking about this time of year and how varied it can often be. It's rare to have a spring that's consistently great or poor all the way through, and so people's ideas of their favourite/most hated springs differ greatly. My mind changes a lot on this but my personal opinions right now (my weather memory goes back to about 2007)

 

Favourite:

1. 2020 - clear blue skies almost every day from 22 March onwards, lasting into early June. Never too hot but rarely too cold. The only year in my lifetime to ever reach 25C on my birthday. Also had the sunniest month on record (May 2020). Just absolute perfection, and the season as a whole got me a lot more interested in weather as it was very synoptically interesting imo. Some highlights were the 7-11 April heatwave, 17 April thunderstorms, a heatwave immediately followed by frost around 10 May, and another heatwave at the end of May with a long chain of 25C days and no cloud to be seen

2. 2011 - here mostly for that insanely summery April. What a month that was and one that's not talked about enough on here. March was quite nice as well, and May was unexceptional but at least it was dry and useable.

3. 2017 - consistently warm all the way through. We missed out on the rest of the country's warmth in March which was quite dull, but April and May, while never hot, were pleasantly warm all the way through. A nice warm sunny spell in early April and intense thunderstorms on 27 May were some of my favourite highlights. But loses out because mid May was very wet down here

 

Least favourite:

1. 2013 - I think this is obvious. Didn't even get any snow here to make up for the bitter cold and it was the dullest spring of the 2010s by a mile. In fact it had a negative temperature anomaly of over 3C and didn't hit 20C until 31st May! Absolute nightmare of a spring

2. 2016 - Cool, wet March. April was cold and dull and there was no interesting weather at all this season until the northerly on 29 April. May ended up being quite nice with a sunny final 10 days, but nothing particularly memorable came from it either. One for the bin.

3. 2008 - Poor March followed by a cold April which I understand delivered snow widely. But not here so from a personal perspective I really disliked April 2008. Early May actually gave us a significantly warm spell of weather which I believe came close to 30C around 11 May, no mean feat for the first half of May! But the month soon became very wet with a southerly tracking jetstream and for this reason spring 2008 was almost entirely awful save for 2 weeks.

Honourable mentions to 2012 and 2015. both had some great weather followed by over a month of dire, cloudy, wet gloom that really ruined the feel of the entire spring. April 2012 and May 2015 have to be some of the worst months ever. However both were preceded by sunny, warm months: so while the springs may have been okay overall, it was more of a feeling of receding back towards winter despite the lengthening days that really hit these springs hard

[Spring 2023 - Moans, Ramps & Chat]

1 hour ago, Summer8906 said:

Do you mean warm and dry, or warm and damp? Hoping not warm and damp; a mixture of cool/damp and warm/damp would be a really miserable spring!

And hope we don't have to wait until June, by then it's only a few weeks until the nights start drawing in, and of course only two months until August, which is cloudy and changeable in a majority of years these days.

But I still think April will be much less bad than March. I don't think I've lived through a year with a dire March and a dire April.

 

2013 definitely comes close but at least it wasn't especially wet, and early April was sunny. Honourable mentions to 2008 and 2016, which both lacked any warmth but also any real interesting weather (in these parts at least).

 

1 hour ago, MP-R said:

2001 must’ve been close… while not completely dire, April was not great and we all know March was cold, dull and wet.

Had I been old enough to notice the weather in 2001, I would've absolutely hated that spring. May looks like it was decent though.

[Model discussion highlights]

Some remarkably warm outliers on the GFS 12z from around day 9 or 10. Every fibre of my being is hoping one of them comes off. In reality though, things look to be trending slightly cooler (and still wet) for the final week of March. I know this is deep into FI but when the outlook is as dismal as it is currently, this is all we can do. I suppose this is the definition of "payback weather" (if it exists) for such a dry second half of winter. 

In fact the mean, for such a long way out, suggests some very strong ensemble agreement on a trough to the west in around 10 days. After that less so, perhaps there is an opportunity for things to dry out following the 25th, but that's so far out that any kind of analysis would be hopecasting.

You know things are bad when you're relying on the CFS for any kind of interesting or enjoyable weather 

[Spring 2023 - Moans, Ramps & Chat]

10 minutes ago, Summer8906 said:

Actually, here it did improve from about the 15th, so a little bit earlier. But more generally I certainly don't want a repeat of spring 2020!

We definitely could do with something a little more balanced I guess given any potential drought issues! And I certainly don't want a repeat of what was going on in the world in spring 2020 either lol. But despite that I have some good memories of admiring the weather and stopping to sunbathe on my daily walks for weeks on end.

I distinctly remember having one beautiful day on 16 March 2020, then a week of constant low cloud stuck under high pressure before things really changed a week later

[Spring 2023 - Moans, Ramps & Chat]

8 minutes ago, Summer8906 said:

I'm not sure it's normal, looks incredibly cyclonic for March. I'd say likely to be one of the wettest and dullest on record, on current GFS runs. Certainly the worst March since 1981, on current runs, by the looks of things.

I hope April does improve; an April as bad as March will be disastrous. I've said this already but given how gloomy life is in general at the moment, we need spring to arrive to cheer us up. At this rate, it'll be April before spring arrives! Like 2013, but without the interesting cold which was the saving grace of that year.

Luckily, March and April weather are often different, and the worst Aprils did not follow particularly bad Marches.

 

Hoping for a March 2020 style flip, I think people forget that month was very dull and cyclonic until about the 22nd. Then came over 2 months of almost non-stop wall to wall sunshine - spring 2020 was the favourite of my lifetime by a mile, no other spring even comes close. A good mid April heatwave would do me nicely this year  

[Spring 2023 - Moans, Ramps & Chat]

5 hours ago, KTtom said:

Currently looking good for Friday, Thursday, however is something else! Anyway, we need the rain so I keep getting told.

Lucky!! The next time we're even set to see sunny spells here is next Tuesday afternoon. Thoroughly depressing. I don't often moan about the weather here as usually a saving grace can be found, like at least February, though boring, was dry and quite sunny, and even the wet spells in November and New Year had some nice sunny days chucked in once or twice a week. But this month is reminding me of May 2021 in that it just refuses to stop being hideously gloomy.

Saying that, surprisingly today turned out quite nicely and it was great to catch the sun! Did my best to ignore the bitter northerly breeze as the skies were clear and I'll happily take that compared to what's forecasted. Could've been a lot worse! Not a great forecast for the next week or so, but at least the only way is up from here 

[Spring 2023 - Moans, Ramps & Chat]

1 hour ago, KTtom said:

Very happy with the model output this morning. The threat of a cold March is quickly receeding, after todays nucence cold, my location is back to double figures, even 15 c possible by the end of the week..1st beers of the year  in the beer garden after work friday

Except for all the rain... you might be the only one sitting in the beer garden after work friday it'll probably be torrential. Rather it was 8C and sunny than 14C and wet

[Summer 2023 chat]

10 minutes ago, alexisj9 said:

Did you get the hot wind where you were, in the evening Infront of the cold front, before the cooler winds started with the cold front. That's when Dover temp shot up to 37 at about five o clock. Was horrible, like opening a fan assisted oven.

I remember reading someone on here describe it as like "walking through a hairdryer" which is the perfect way to put it. A day I'll never forget as a weather enthusiast, feeling strong winds at 35C was something I thought I'd never experience in the UK but that's climate change for you.

Not something we could do with every summer though, this year all I want is a long spell of sun and mid-high 20s with occasional southerly sourced thunderstorms to mix things up and avoid a drought as bad as last year. If I'm going to be selfish I would choose to have all our rain in May and June as that's when my exams are lol  then a nice classic July spell of static HP like 2013 or 2018

[Spring 2023 - Moans, Ramps & Chat]

1 hour ago, CryoraptorA303 said:

I'm surprised you mention last March. While it definitely was a warmer March than some and had that warm spell in the second half of the month, it really wasn't much out of the ordinary. Even then, expecting every March to be like 2022 as a default is going to leave you disappointed a lot of the time.

I'm not completely sure but I remember last March being the sunniest on record for over 90 years. Certainly down here it was actually slightly sunnier than 2012 and its mean temperature was exactly the same (9.8C). It lacked a very warm (widely low 20s) spell like we had in 2012 or 2021, but instead we got a full 10 days of clear blue skies and high teens with little wind, and the rest of the month was very mild anyway, barring the weekend of 5-6 March and the northerly that set in around the 30th. Very dry as well apart from the first three days. I will forever remember being able to swim in the sea with my friends on 14th March 2022, never been able to do something like that so early in the year before. No such thing this year haha  March 2022 was my second favourite March ever, after 2012.

1 hour ago, Sunny76 said:

Yeah it can be hit and miss with March in terms of getting a taste of spring weather. Even April in some years can take time to produce some warm weather. It’s usually the first or second week of April in most years before we enjoy some proper warm days. 

The storms are sometimes harder to come by, even more than snow.

I hope we get a humdinger of a storm this summer.

My birthday is on the 11th April and usually we get at least a short spell in the high teens by then, only 2013 and 2016 I can remember have failed on this count. I'm lucky as very often my birthday has clear blue skies!

1 hour ago, Mapantz said:

Talking of weather; Did it get rough down your way this afternoon?

It was pretty blowy here this morning!

 

Here it was the windiest day since Franklin last February, no mean feat for well into March. Weirdly it felt quite mild at 13C despite the howling winds, as the sun was peering through the clouds quite often today (between the showers). Usually the wind is the worst thing of all for me and I feel the cold very easily but today, by this March's standards, wasn't too bad.

[Spring 2023 - Moans, Ramps & Chat]

I find a lot of people (including myself) have extremely high expectations for March. Since it's the start of "spring" and has arrived on the back of a sunny February, as well as March 2022 being quite exceptional, I was mentally prepared for something a lot nicer. It's easy to forget we are still in the 4th coldest month of the year.

We have had some lovely spring spells of weather in the past few years (May 2018, the end of March 2019, all of spring 2020, second half of April 2021, March/April 2022) and it won't be long before something good comes out of this year. Even spring 2013 and 2021 had some nice spells of weather! I'm just glad it isn't summer right now with these synoptics because that would be awful.

[Summer 2023 chat]

37 minutes ago, WeatherArc said:

Wow, incredible agreement this far out. Does raise some drought concerns with how dry its been. I do think we will have somewhat of a wet spring that could hopefully help refill reservoirs (saying that the GFS is trying its best to build HP over us by late March) but if these seasonal models do come off it may be too little too late unfortunately. It does also leave the door open for extreme heat (40°C +) although that will depend on the amount of heat over Spain and France. May be another bad year for wildfires though, especially if we are in drought conditions and start to see relative humidity below 20% like last summer.

Not linked to the models but i do wonder how hot it could realistically get in this country, i once thought anything above 38 was impossible but now i dont know, maybe around 45°C ?

 

To be fair I think 19 July 2022 had the perfect conditions to get as close as possible to an absolute maximum (for now): very dry ground, very high SSTs, near-peak sun strength and day length, high pressure already heating up the ground in the weeks leading up to it, an intense pool of heat in Iberia, and the low placed in exactly the perfect location to draw up lots of southerly air at peak daylight. Even Plymouth got to 35C when I thought it was impossible to get over 32C here! So I find it very difficult to believe anything over around 42C is physically possible at this moment in time.

With the current rate of climate change I think 45C will be attainable within a couple of decades which is very scary. But it's a definite possibility.

[Summer 2023 chat]

16 hours ago, CreweCold said:

CFS

EC seasonal

Both virtually identical around the UK. Looks to me like a HP dominated summer is odds on.

EDIT: GLOSEA completes the set

 

I'm feeling a summer of "homegrown" heat instead of heat imported from the south or south west by a HP anomaly to the east. Lately we've had little in the way of sunny weather with temps in the high 20s/early 30s and more of an alternation between cloudy high teens/low 20s and intense, short bursts of heat. 2022 was an amazing summer and I think it'll be hard for 2023 to challenge it despite the obvious effects of climate change, however with such strong model agreement we can't rule out another sunny, dry season.

Perhaps something like June 2010, July 2013, August 2016 is more likely imo, which would still give us a very pleasant, sunny summer without intense heat. As much as I enjoy the excitement of an intense heatwave, I think some people could do without something as insanely hot (for the UK) as July 2022. And I think a wet spring is looking increasingly likely which will help reduce the impact of a dry summer.

[Spring 2023 - Moans, Ramps & Chat]

Friday could potentially turn out nicely... widely 13-15C with sunshine in between the showers. The lucky ones of us could get some sunny springlike conditions in the afternoon hopefully! In the meantime still waiting for spring proper to get going as March at the moment looks like it could end up being exceptionally dull and wet. Already at 80% of the March average rainfall and only 16 hours of sunshine  At least we are seeing some interesting synoptics with a brief northerly/NWly on Tuesday/Wednesday and GFS consistently hinting at a warmer southerly from around 10 days' time!

It's kind of funny how such a settled winter has been bookended by an incredibly unsettled November and March.

[Rarely talked about weather events]

The thunderstorms of 27th May 2017.

Not sure how localised they were, but here we had the most violent thunderstorms I've ever witnessed in my life raging for around five hours. Very little rain but intense, loud thunder the entire night starting shortly after midnight and never seemed to stop. 2017 was a good year for thunder actually, with probably the second best thunderstorm I've ever seen coming in the early hours of December 29th 2017, with biblical rain and bright flashes very close by.

Honourable mention to June 25-26th 2020, a hot snap and very intense thunderstorm that came in the middle of a very poor period of summer weather. June 25th 2020 actually set the highest temperature for Plymouth since 1990 I believe. 

[Spring 2023 - Moans, Ramps & Chat]

2 minutes ago, Norrance said:

Welcome to the forum @plymsunshine. Hope that you get the weather you want. Sun has come out here now and the snow is disappearing quickly. Not yet in the really mild air though it is only a few miles away. Currently 3C.

Thank you  hopefully only a couple of weeks to go before some real warmth. Good to see a lot of the country got some snow though, after so many people were left disappointed in winter. The boundary between cold and mild air right now is very narrow which could lead to some interesting and very variable conditions up country, definitely not here though. Here in Plymouth we are forecasted to have a maximum above 9C and rain every single day haha, feels like a late December redux

[Drought Watch]

3 minutes ago, Sunny76 said:

2012 summer would be seriously depressing. If that happens, I won’t even bother going out on the weekends lol.

I like to think that we're getting our zonality out of the way now to allow high pressure to become more persistent in the warmer months. Absolutely no science behind this just something that makes me feel better about this poor March

 

10 minutes ago, RJBingham said:

Reservoir storage for Anglian water 89.8 full

Monitoring water resources | Anglian Water Services

WWW.ANGLIANWATER.CO.UK

---

Our reservoir levels, river levels and Groundwater levels in our region.

 

Good that certain reservoirs are approaching normal levels after such a severe drought. While I would love another hot, sunny summer, I guess I wouldn't complain about some regular thunderstorm-associated heavy rain to keep the water table topped up and avoid a repeat of last year. (with an immediate reload of high pressure afterwards of course). Everyone loves a good thunderstorm.

[Spring 2023 - Moans, Ramps & Chat]

Hi everyone! This is my first post here, I've been lurking on the forum since 2020 but I've decided to join ready for spring to arrive.

The past 12 months of weather has been great in my opinion, consistently warm through spring and summer, some good thunderstorms and late warmth in the autumn, and then deep cold in December (with a dusting of snow in January which for Plymouth is a huge event lol). Very few gloomy wet spells, probably only May, most of November and the time around New Year were poor imo. Very happy to have had a lot of sunny weather in February as well

Hopefully spring can arrive soon because I'm not loving this March so far. I haven't seen the sun since the 2nd but there are encouraging signs on the ensembles from around the 23rd, deep in FI i know but I'm just so ready for spring sunshine and the happiness it gives me!!