Thundery wintry showers

Yes, somehow I forgot that warm spell at the end of the otherwise very westerly-dominated May of 2003. Indeed, I see broad similarities between the summer of 2003 and the aforementioned 1947 - warm changeable June & July, warm anticyclonic August.

My mind went back to 1947 which had an exceptional heatwave at the start of June, and June and July 1947 were warm but rather changeable, and then August 1947 was pretty similar to August 1995. I think 1996 had a brief warm spell at the end of May and a short hot spell around 5-7 June, and that summer was decent enough. I can't think of many other counterexamples though. 2018 was pretty warm around late May/early June but May 2018 had been one of the warmest and sunniest Mays on record.

It was rather cloudy in Lincoln until mid-afternoon but the sun has since broken through. Often at this time of year a "cloudy" high will mutate into a "sunny" one unless we get a steady input of moist air and cloud cover into the high pressure (e.g. the late August 2008 anticyclonic spell was cloudy because we were under a constant tropical maritime westerly flow). It's currently looking like it will be cloudy for many again tomorrow, but mainly sunny over the Bank Holiday weekend with the high being positioned over the country.

That's what was particularly strange about it, it didn't seem to be attached to anything. But it definitely looked like that when I was observing the cloud.

Not sure if this thing over Lincoln was a funnel cloud.

I'm not too concerned about where the ECM ends up. It's a shallower depression than we've been used to during May, so at the very least it would be less windy and there could be more emphasis on sunshine and thundery showers. The lows lurking out in the Atlantic don't look particularly potent either, so a plausible evolution could see the low over the UK fill, allowing high pressure to link up between the Azores and Scandinavia two or three days later. I also see plenty of "summery" weather on offer earlier in that ECMWF run anyway. Indeed, the T+144 chart looks a lot like the UKMO, with high pressure firmly in control and also looking favourably placed to bring plenty of sunshine: Four or five days of fine weather and then a thundery breakdown, and no guarantee of the breakdown producing more than two or three days with rain or showers, would still be very different to the strongly North Atlantic-dominated weather that we've seen during this May.

Just thought I would pick up on this, as looking back over the charts for summer 1987 I can see where this is coming from. There was indeed a fair amount of high pressure close to the UK at times during that summer, but it was frequently in the "wrong" place, feeding in cool cloudy northerlies or moist westerlies. In reality it was a notoriously dull cool wet summer overall, especially during June and from mid-July through to mid-August. There was a fine spell for many starting at the very end of June and lasting until mid-July particularly in the south, and a thundery plume in late August, but that was pretty much it. However, I'm seeing some parallels with 2013 in the current charts and the evolution of the year so far, which could get particularly interesting if they continue into July. There's been a bit of a shift in the models since yesterday, placing high pressure further east, which reduces the chances of cool cloudy weather affecting the east of England via northerlies, but this morning's ECMWF run does kick the high pressure away rather more quickly. It's worth pointing out that the latter stages of the ECMWF run would tend to translate to near-normal weather rather than a washout, with high pressure not far from the south. The NOAA 8-14 day outlook is still indicating above average heights, it will be interesting to see if that changes today but I am still seeing indications that there will be a pattern change towards the beginning of June, albeit with uncertainty over exactly what that pattern change will be. Climate Prediction Center - 8-14 Day 500mb Outlook WWW.CPC.NCEP.NOAA.GOV

It got up to 16C in Lincoln in the sun earlier, though it's now down at 10C following a heavy shower. I guess those further south have been under the cloudier skies and showers since the beginning of the day, doesn't look like there's much sun in between them.

I had a check of the records for nearby RAF Waddington and in records going back to 1949, only 1962, 1969 and 1983 failed to reach 20C in either April or May, so it's pretty unusual even up here, and more of a stretch in this era of elevated global temperatures. It won't be setting any records for "latest 20C in the year" though thanks to that very warm spell in late March. That said, looking at the latest ECMWF run in particular there's a chance of the high pressure in the last two or three days of May getting just far east enough for it to get to around 20C.

It probably varies from location to location, but during the period 5-19 May I enjoyed having five thunder days in the space of 15. I'd ideally have liked the dull days in that period to be substituted with sunny ones, especially that wet and windy washout Bank Holiday, but I certainly found some aspects of that weather enjoyable. I can't find anything to enjoy about yesterday's and today's weather though, I agree with the sentiments about it being more like late October out there. One could argue that at least it's unusual for the time of year, but as we already had weather like this on the Bank Holiday even that novelty has gone.

In Lincoln I've managed 5 thunder-days out of the past 15 so am not complaining too much at the moment, though the upcoming wet and windy weather doesn't particularly appeal, nor does the longer-term outlook with high pressure in the "wrong" place. The latter could still change though with the latest GFS 12Z run having the high further east than a lot of other recent runs.

I think 2012 came close to it, but the warm/hot spell at the end of May prevented it. March was the sunniest month of that year in some spots though.

I don't think April 1991 looks that bad - most of the sites that I've looked at had near average temperatures, near average rainfall and above average sunshine (with respect to 1961-1990, the most recent 30-year mean for 1991). It was June 1991 that was dull, cold and wet, rather than April.

Yes April 1984 was a very fine April, dry and sunny with warm days and cold nights. But yes May 1986 was changeable, with an early hot spell followed by westerlies and low pressure, though some eastern areas managed close to or slightly above average sunshine. And April 1986 was dull and wet as well as cold, with many areas seeing frequent sleet/wet snow falling but nothing of note on the ground, in contrast to the similarly cold but very sunny and dry April we've just had. April and May 1983 were very wet and May in particular was cool and very dull as well, though for the storm lovers offset by a high frequency of thunder. For those who don't like snow in mid to late spring 1975 and 1979 spring to mind as April/May combinations that would get classed as somewhat poor, though of course in 1975 it switched around in early June.

Here's a video I uploaded of the hail at its heaviest.

According to the weather station at the University of Lincoln, there was over 20mm of rain/hail in an hour from this monstrosity, which gave quite a bit of thunder and lighting (it was often difficult to hear the thunder over the noise of the hail coming down!)

I've discussed Christmas '87 earlier, but I think also February 1988 is quite an unjustly maligned month because of it being part of that winter that started the shift towards milder winters. South and east of a line from Northumberland to the Welsh border it was exceptionally sunny, for instance at RAF Waddington near here, there were over 120 hours of sunshine that month. Other high totals included 116 hours at Heathrow and 113 at Durham, and locally 140+ hours on the south coast. The frequency of sleet/snow falling was also surprisingly high for such a relatively mild month in many parts of the country (Waddington had 14 such days), though admittedly it never stuck around for long except on high ground and some southern and western areas saw out the month with no lying snow. There was also quite a high frequency of hail and thunder in the polar maritime dominated weather early in the month, and a notable gale on the 9th. As far as I'm aware January 1988 was mild and very wet with only average amounts of sunshine, and December 1987 was rather dull despite the sunny Christmas, though a fair swathe of England had a snow event from a southerly tracking depression on 22 January.

Yes, only around 12C max here today, and I haven't seen any sunshine. I guess Lincoln's good run (relative to many other parts of the UK) had to come to an end at some point.

The ECMWF would be more certain to bring a sub 10C May in my opinion. Some impressively cold air for late May (around -6C 850hPa over much of central and northern Britain) showing at around T+216-240 on both the 00Z and 12Z runs today. I don't follow the argument that this persistently colder than average weather will mean we'll have a cool summer. There were marked counterexamples in 1975 and 1983. Also 1995 had a generally cool spell of weather from 8 May until around 20 June, broken by a brief warmish interlude in late May, and I certainly recall "Where's our summer" comments in early to mid June that year...

I think in 1965 some places managed to have their warmest day of the year in March! It's unlikely to happen this year, but it wouldn't be completely unprecedented if it did. I think the season has been advancing since early April - we had those northerlies early on, then a run of dry sunny cool weather, and now into the second week of May temperatures have been on the up, with no frosts recently and maxima around the mid-teens, but of course there was that exceptional warmth at the end of March which rather skewed things. Since that early warm/hot spell it's certainly been advancing at a slower rate than normal especially for recent years. Lincoln has got off lightly so far this month, the last two days were dry and sunny with maxes of around 16C, some sharp showers and a bit of thunder earlier in the week with 15-16C max, but today so far it's been cloudy and just 10C, we'll have to see if the sun gets out later.

I'm getting off lightly again it would seem, sunny intervals and 16C, which is equal to the 1981-2010 average max for May for nearby RAF Waddington. The radar confirms that it's been a real washout for Devon over the past couple of days though!

Going further back you could also add 1969 and 1984 to that list. It's a link that has held surprisingly consistently over the past half-century. I haven't yet checked it against earlier years though.

I see you posted about songs from May 1983 in another thread. 1983 was a year that sprung to mind that had a fine summer but lacked any hot weather of note until June. 1975 was another example, the first hot spell of the year came straight after out-of-season snowfalls on 2 June! I don't think there was much hot weather around in the springs of 1955 or 1969 either (both again followed by fine summers). In recent years, 2013 sticks out - July 2013 was a particularly warm sunny month in the west of Britain, but the spring and June were on the cool side.

I don't remember it personally as I was only three and a half years old. It's more my knowledge of weather stats, I've seen records from various UK climate stations and I remembered Christmas Day 1987 standing out at a number of sites as a very sunny day during a dull spell of weather.

A few rumbles in west Lincoln, and some torrential rain.