Scorcher

I was talking about the month as a whole- Heathrow's average max for the month has been 16.2C which IS above average up to this point of the month.

16C is above average for April, no matter where you are in the country! April is not a summer month. It seems some people have forgotten that.

The stats don't bear that out at all- the month has been above average in the SE as well- an average max of 16.2C at Heathrow so far. Hard to believe you think it's been cool to be honest looking at the statistics. Only a couple of days have failed to reach average since the first week. Meteociel - Climatologie mensuelle de London / Heathrow (UK) ( United Kingdom ) WWW.METEOCIEL.FR Résumé mensuel des observations météo ( températures minimales et maximales, précipitations et ensoleillement) de la station London / Heathrow (UK) ( United Kingdom )

It does feel chilly today but you're always going to get days like this in a normal April and even an average May. Or certainly the vast majority of spring months anyway. We've been spoilt over the last 15 years or so with several exceptionally warm Aprils that have been warm all the way through- it's probably skewed expectations.

The month is running well above average. I'm partial to a moan myself but come on... What exactly are you expecting? Not uncommon at all for April not to record 20C (although many parts have this year).

Agreed, it's been very good so far. So much for the cold, unsettled April that many were predicting on here at the start of the month. This is also turning into quite a sunny month now, but without the frosts of last year. The last 2 weeks have been completely frost free here.

Damian I know you love northerlies, but the trend is clearly away from it now. We may get a brief one still but a potent one looks unlikely now.

The ECM isn't showing much of a northerly at all

The good news is that the northerly is looking less certain this evening- both GFS and the ECM are showing possible routes to avoiding it.

A northerly looks likely but I can't see too much evidence from the models of a wet period following it? Certainly not just yet anyway.

August 2002 wasn't bad though- I recall the 2nd half of the month in particular being very decent. Better than a lot of the Augusts we've had in the last 15 years. 1992 had an excellent May- it would be amazing if we could have something similar this year. Sunny, warm Mays are always truly special.

It's still very much like spring here this week and I believe it is for most areas. Temps average to above for many still! I feel expectations have been raised for April given we've had a few warm, sunny ones in the past few years.

A very uninspiring outlook- not much to say really!

No sign of this at all. When is there not very cold air over the Arctic?

I'm laughing with relief at the fact it's 12 days away...

Great ECM 12Z run in the latter stages, with high pressure eventually establishing itself over the UK. It's a fairly warm run all the way through as well, particularly further south. Fingers crossed we've seen the last of the frosts after this weekend. The GFS has to be the worst case scenario from this point- a very random run.

The mean is looking a lot better which is promising. Looks likely that temps will rise at least slightly above average next week and possibly well above.

Pretty much gone on the 12Z though. Looking good for a warmup of sorts beyond the weekend, particularly in the south. Nothing spectacular and not settled but temps could rise above average once again.

I don't think this is true at all- looks to me like a gradual warm up from the weekend onwards is likely, and perhaps the chance of a more significant warm up.

Oh yes...more 6/7C rain- how exciting. At least some of the coldies are still enthusiastic though- fair play to you!

Maybe this will be a lesson to those who think they can predict the final correction- most people were suggesting a large correction this time. Just shows that we really don't know. Just because there have been cold nights doesn't mean a large correction is certain.

The start of this month is reminding me a lot of April 2006 which had a cold start- it didn't really warm up until the 2nd half and there were plenty of showers, some of them wintry. Pattern matching doesn't really work for me. There have been cold springs followed by warm/hot summers and warm springs followed by warm/hot summers. 2003 stands out as an example of the latter, although it had a very underwhelming May. To me there does seem to be a correlation between early hot spells and hot summers- many of the great summers seem to have notable hot spells between the middle of April and the middle of May. 2003, 2006, 2018 and 1995 all had these. I think 1976 did as well but I'm not 100% sure.

As expected, an absolutely foul day today. Truly horrible. I hope those that wished the glorious sunshine away are happy now...

Talk about being pedantic. I'd say that's very debatable. That's exactly what speculation is- it's making predictions based on very little (but not exactly zero) knowledge.

The one positive is that the prospect of hard frosts seems to have faded for most of us, which should at least limit serious damage to plants.