mackerel sky

No chance http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/satpics/latest_uk_ir.html

Only nuisance rain, not even worth talking about. Watered the plants, looking forward to a nice day tomorrow!

If I wasn't half asleep I would have been a bit scared. Spent the hours of 11pm-2pm reassuring the dog who doesn't get along well with loud noises from earlier T-storms. Those strikes were bloody close.

Crock of poo, overhyped. Will be dry by midnight and a nice day tomorrow.

40 miles west everyone I know was woken from their beds at 4.30-5am Tuesday morning. I certainly was. At the top scale.

Chucked it down for about 30 minutes. Now just wet. Piffle. Not a rumble.

Checked my weather station out with the local one, pretty much in agreement. I have 26.7C currently with a DP of 15C. http://www.stanwickweather.org.uk/graphhome.php Absolutely roasting in the sun with the humidity! Feels hotter than when it topped out at 32C recently!

Much warmer here than they said it would be today under clear skies. Already 26C - surely 29C isn't out of the question. Humidity makes it feel quite oppressive in the sun. That only has to fan the fire for later surely? In the meantime, time to cut the grass.

Rumbles of thunder here, dark to the SW.

Bucketing down here. Bang! Just as I type - very close.

Plenty of rumbles out there now.

I think it is kicking off here! Earlier storms went west, seems to be forming overhead.

Sporadic bursts of heavy rain lasting a few minutes. A few flashes of lightening and distant rumbles of thunder.

A local AWS site does an 'on this day' look from when it started. This only confirms how cold and rubbish it is, given that since the site started with its observations we haven't had much in the way of warmth. It is down in the valley - today here it dropped to 3.8C in a heavy shower. Dreadful. http://www.stanwickweather.org.uk/history.php

Only hail here. Temperature in one shower did get down to 3.8C and only just got up to 9C at best. Utter rubbish weather. Looks like heavy rain pushing in from the North Sea and a very wet morning.

Might be a bit of snow tomorrow morning for the south east of the region. I do hope that is it. Some in the SE regional thread have been reporting snow, some settling, this evening. Still some dregs of drifts in the hedgerows out of town.

Very light snow again this morning!

I heard the distant sound of someone mowing their lawn today - lunatics! One benefit of this cold weather is the grass isn't growing! To potentially get to mid-April and not have to get the mower out is quite something. Anyhow off to home in most northern North Yorks for Easter tomorrow. They got bog all last weekend! Did have light flurrys early this morning - left a tiny cover that disappeared by about 9am. Still drifts in the fields on the edge of town. Think I've got a few tiny bits of snow left against the fence! But bitterly cold tonight, already down to -3.6C.

Light snow here this morning!

Thanks for everything. I don't even know how I stumbled across netweather, but I think I was member 500 or something. Back in the days of dial-up from home. For an amateur, who nearly became a Meteorologist, but went into seismic exploration instead it has maintained my hobby and enthusiasm!!! Here is to the next 10 years of the crème de la crème. And you don't sell stories to the Daily Express! Viva netweather!

Well last summer when we had a truly awful time, the likes of mid and northern Norway had a fantastic summer. I remember being in Trondheim in a glorious 25C mid May one year (I think 2006) when the jet stream was bang over us. So if the jet never returns north - eventually good conditions will pursue - a gradual warming process. If we go from this, to a raging Atlantic (unlikely) - and May is usually a fairly benign month - but noted for easterlies - west is best - northeast sea mist (lovely in Lancaster, rubbish in Middlesbrough), the weather patterns are surely cocked up. A crappy summer will have us wanting to leave the UK!!!

The beauty of this weather though is I still haven't cut the grass since the 1st week of October. And its likely to be 3rd week of April before I have to consider that chore. Some bloke down the pub told me grass doesn't grow below 6C. He is green fingered and about 75, so is probably right(!?).

Hi John, I haven't looked at the SSTs for a while - probably not since the beginning of February, but I haven't seen an anomaly like that in the last ten years. It does explain some things though. Dependent on wind direction, and a shorter fetch in the southern north sea with cold SSTs and land temperatures its not great for convection! We haven't really had a classic streamer anywhere this winter - North Sea convection has favoured those areas from the Lincolnshire coast northwards - just purely because of a greater fetch of water. If you have little contrast between the land and sea temperature under fairly benign conditions not much is going to happen. I know people where banking on the very cold 850 temperatures, which is what - typically about 1200-1500m height under standard pressure conditions(?). If we had a mild winter, and the SSTs were high, with a sudden onset of weeks and weeks of cold weather it would be interesting. You can't have it all ways!

The southern north sea is always colder, usually at it is coldest late Feb/early March because less influenced by the North Atlantic Drift. The English Channel is narrow and shallow, so the warmth of the Atlantic felt in the SW diminishes. A weak current - an offshoot of the North Atlantic Drift flows around the top of Scotland into the North Sea. Coldest Sea temperatures on our shores are usually observed from about the Tees down to the Wash usually. A bit further south this year. Had a snow flurry here at about 8pm! Complete surprise. Edited as the cold water that exits the Baltic goes via the Norwegian trough (the deepest part of the North Sea just of the southern Norwegian Coast). Anyway, the area described has the coldest SSTs as the warm currents of the North Atlantic Drift have to go around the length of British Isles. http://www.zeeinzicht.nl/vleet/index.php?id=3111&template=template-vleeteng&language=2&item=Sea-currents

Still some drifts on the edge of town and in the surrounding countryside. Last dregs in the garden. Missed the event here, as was up in York where it was pants last weekend - about 1 inch at best early Sunday. Did have a very light snow flurry about 8pm tonight that left the very slightest of covering on car roofs. Wasn't expecting that.