Nick H

I have recently planted some wisteria against my south-facing house. It usually comes out in middle May but it's at least 3 weeks early this year. Sadly the beautiful flowers will only last a couple of weeks more so you have to enjoy them now, but the scent is heavenly.

Can't really add anything to that. Quite remarkable.

Dear old Philip had a bit of a schocker in the CET prediction. He actually forecast a below-average month.

I think I recall Paul saying that CFS had forecast a Craig Evans-like figure for this month....so in actual fact it wasn't too far out! What was it again, Paul, about 13C?

Amazing isn't it.. I would hardly call the last three days in the CET zone wet, most of have seen just a few spots of rain. Yet the rainfall total has rocketed up from 3 per cent to 23 per cent.

Wow, that would be very good for June, let alone May.

I know that spring 1961 had a CET of 9.73C. Have I missed out the warmest? If so, does anyone know the warmest spring on UK record? The only other two springs that come to mind from recent memory are 1989 and 1990 but I know these were both slightly cooler than 1961. EDIT I can answer my own question actually, 10.2C is the answer, I wasn't looking hard enough as I've just spotted it on Mr Data's Historic Weather thread! 1893 the year. Assuming a conservative estimate for this month of 11.3C, May would only need to come in at 12.3C to establish a new seasonal record.

It's looking very close at the moment. I think it was 5.3mm up to the 23rd, but a lot of places in the west of the CET zone have seen 2-3mm in the past 24 hrs. Hardly a spot of rain in the forecast for the remainder of the month, it just depends how far north the rain band progress in the early hours of tomorrow. Atm, it's not looking like it will be going much further than a diagonal from Sussex, then north London to north Suffolk.

And who knows if we hit 10.65C he will turn out to be even closer than Mr Data's punt! (Sorry, Kevin )

Maybe they have but in the appropriate thread!

Indeed Shuggee I was thinking exactly the same...except it seems to me to be at least every 2-3 months rather than 9! We might as well wheel out the posts from the NW archive and stick them here right now...these arguments are so well rehearsed.

August 2006 was hardly a warm month (.2 below the mean?), despite a dry April (50% avge rainfall).

Not sure I follow. The fact that in the past 12 months monthly temperatures have risen sharply against the 30 year mean is not an argument for scrapping the series as an historical record of temps. I'm not sure your assertion that AGW "accentuates the difference between west and east" is correct. Do you have evidence that the east has seen more accelerated temps than the west since 1988? With regard to the representativeness issue, I don't see whole including the extreme south of England and the far north of England would make any substantial difference anyway. The two would probably cancel each other out and therefore have a negligible impact, being virtually the same as the CET. So it's leave the CET as it is for me.

How about the cold of April 1983? I recorded a maximum of just 4C on April 18 that year. It was also the last notably cold Easter, with 6 inches of lying snow in the Chilterns on Easter Sunday morning, April 3. My lowest April maximum was in 1989, just 3C on the 5th.

April maxima >23C from my location in the Chiltern Hills since 1980: Easter Saturday, 21 April 1984 23C 29 April 1994 23C 20 April 1996 24C 21 April 1996 23C 23 April 2002 24C 24 April 2002 24C 16 April 2003 25C Plus several 20C/21C over the years.

Oh dear not again! Wasn't it the Express that last summer said it was going to be 100F in August, and they said that only 5 days before the forecast event! It barely reached 80F that day if I remember rightly.

In which case the current Manley CET is all the more surprising given the period April 1-6 is cooler, on average, than the period April 1-30.

I always think of 1987 as one of the most interesting years in the history of British weather. We had that freezing January, a decent February, a cold March (often forgotten), a lovely April, the period mid-June to mid-July was probably the best summer weather we had during those awful summers of 1985-88, then of course the Great Storm in October. A notable year indeed.

Great minds think alike, Kevin

Not convinced by Mr Currie's March forecast of rainfall being twice the long term average and sunshine below long term norm. In fact, it's one of the sunniest Marches on record and 15% drier than usual.

Eh? The two are interchangeable are they not?

No Aug 2006 was slightly below the long-term mean. I believe some period in the mid-1950s holds the record for longest period above the 30 year mean (Kevin??!)

Well WeatherOnline are going for 18C on Maundy Thursday, 18C on Good Friday and 20C on Easter Saturday. It's certainly looking good at the moment.

What is even odder is that she correctly predicted a NW'ly airflow this week... but she couldn't put two and two together and suggest that, because of this, temperatures might fall? No common sense and logic

Higher stations tend to record higher minima than lower stations, up to a certain altitude. The converse is true for daytime maxima, with lower stations recording higher maxima than higher stations.