Thundery wintry showers

That figures - April 1997 was a very sunny month in the south (especially south-east) with temperatures up to 2.5C above the normal by day but near normal by night, while in Scotland and the north of England it was cloudier with a similar anomaly of 1 to 1.5C by both day and night. The north-south split explains why averaged nationally it wasn't that remarkable sunshine wise, despite being very much so in the SE (218.5 hours at Heathrow). April 1993 was a dull wet month with an emphasis on high overnight minima so that's probably why it didn't feel that warm.

Yes April 1982 was warm and dry and quite sunny, though there was a northerly outbreak in the second week which coincided with Easter. I'm surprised that the CET was only 8.6, as at Durham the month was 1.3C warmer than the 1961-1990 average, so there may have been a fair amount of regional variation. I think often the maximum temperature is more important than mean temperature for how warm a month "feels". I checked max and min CET, and by that measure, April 1984's average maximum was the highest since 1961, and its mean minimum was the joint lowest since 1956. The month was also cool until the 18th and then consistently warm and sunny from the 19th onwards, which would have made that spell especially stand out at the time.

It's rather dawned on me that comparisons of warm dry Aprils with subsequent summers may be being skewed by the recent warming trend, which may be biasing things towards the recent succession of warm Aprils followed by cloudy wet summers. Note though that even in the 21st century there was a counterexample in April 2003. The 1991-2020 average CET was 9.0C, but over 1961-1990 it was only 7.9C, and there was a remarkable run from 1962-1986 inclusive when no April recorded a CET of 9C or higher. Pre-21st century I suggest that 8C CET is a reasonable benchmark. When I was growing up in the 1990s, the Aprils of 1995 and 1997 (CET 9.1 and 9.0 respectively) were certainly regarded as warm and very dry at the time. Sunshine in April 1995 was generally above normal except in the northern half of Scotland, and April 1997 was very sunny in the SE, though dull in the NW. The first half of April 1995 was the warmest for 50 years, which more than offset the cold snap from the 18th-21st. I mention 1997 as although that summer was a mixed bag it did contain the second hottest August on record. Note that April 1984 wasn't particularly warm as measured by the CET (8.1) but would have felt warm due to well above average sunshine, warm days and cool nights. The same could also be said of April 1990 (CET 8.0).

The springs of 1995 and 1996 do seem to merge into one for some, but Spring 1995 was not cold overall because it had alternating warm and cold spells, overall it was slightly warmer than the 1961-1990 average for much of England and Wales, slightly cooler than average over much of Scotland. The CET anomaly for the spring was +0.5, mainly due to the very warm first half of April. The prolonged cold spell around mid-May 1995 was offset by a heatwave in the first week and a warmish spell on the 21st-28th. It's easy to forget that April 1996 was warmer than average overall, though more than offset by the persistently cold weather of March and May. I recall that April '96 didn't feel that warm though because of a shortage of sunshine. And yes, March 1996 had the kind of easterly pattern that characterised the second half of January 1996, and also parts of December 1995. In January 1996, Tynemouth had just 5 hours of sunshine (with 3 of those on the 28th!), and Durham had just 8 hours. February 1996 was somewhat sunnier, but then in March the grey easterlies returned. I can certainly see similarities between 1996 and 2013, especially as 2013 also had marked spells of "easterly" weather in January and March. 2013, like 1996, also had a warmer and sunnier than average summer for most following the cold winter and spring, and both years also had a warm October and a cool November. However Jan/March 2013 weren't quite as dull as their 1996 counterparts in north-east England.

When I was growing up in the 1990s there were quite a few warm sunny anticyclonic spells in the Marches but not on the scale of late March 2012. Perhaps the one exception was 16-18 March 1990, which, though not as widespread as the March 2012 instance, saw temperatures into the low 20s Celsius in many areas from a southerly flow, and there were very sunny spells for many around 24-27 March 1993, 19-24 March 1995 and during the last few days of March 1997, which resulted in an early warm sunny Easter. March 1994 stood out as a particularly windy, westerly-dominated March from my childhood, with gales in the first week, around midmonth, on the 23rd and again in the last few days. 17 March 1995 was also very windy. March 1995 was my favourite, as it had quite a bit of "cold zonality" with westerlies producing snow and hail showers at times, interspersed with a couple of warm anticyclonic interludes (10th-13th and the aforementioned 19th-24th), and a northerly on the 27th. But I don't remember much windy Atlantic-driven weather in the Marches of 1996 to 2003. March 1996 stuck out for how cold and dull it was, especially as Tyneside had well above average sunshine in the Marches of 1994, 1995 and 1997. I remember March 2002 for mild changeable weather until around the 25th and then a switch to warm sunny weather with high pressure, which raised the month's sunshine totals above average except in parts of the south. March 2005's warm sunny weather only lasted a couple of days or so, I recall the last third being warm but very dull. I remember the fine spell of mid-March 2009 well, but not so much March 2011 - maybe that one got dwarfed by March 2012. March 2007 hasn't yet been mentioned, but that had a fair amount of dry sunny weather for most parts as well, with a brief northerly interruption on the 18th-20th.

I was living in South Tyneside in the 1990s, and I certainly didn't enjoy Spring '96, mainly because of how dull March and to a lesser extent April were. March 1996 had just 30-35 hours of sunshine in that area of the UK, about 30% of the normal, and 15 consecutive sunless days from the 11th to 25th. It was an exceptionally dull March by any standards, but stood out even more because the Marches of 1994, 1995 and 1997 all had around 150 hours of sunshine (40-50% above the normal). May was more interesting for coming very close to being the coldest May on record (a warm southerly in the last few days scuppered its chances), and surprisingly for such a "north-easterly" month, sunshine was a little above average. As some may know I remember Spring 1995 very fondly - several times we had warm sunshine one week and wintry showers the next, due to a recurring pattern of high pressure over the UK dragging warm air up from the west and south, periodically moving out into the Atlantic and northerly and north-westerly air streams coming down to fill the gap. I think in Spring 1996 there were a couple of warmish spells, one around 20 April and one at the end of May, but for the most part it was a spring with rather less temperature variation.

Yes, there was a wintry spell in March 2007 during an otherwise warm month. In Tyneside I had a couple of days with lying snow from this northerly on the 20th and 21st, although it was only a centimetre or two. Showers of hail, sleet and snow were most widespread on the 19th and accompanied locally by thunder, then on the 20th they were mainly confined to eastern areas plus Wales and the south-west.

Some others from the archives for your collection: 4 March 1970, a frontal system pushed against Arctic air, and in the areas that saw deep snow from it, the snow stuck around for several days despite plentiful sunshine after the front cleared: Mid-March 1979: although not an outstandingly cold easterly, cold enough to bring days of persistent snow and accumulations to a large part of northern England, and in the Newcastle area this was the deepest snowfall of the winter (and considering how snowy the winter of 1978/79 was, that's saying a lot): "Frontal battleground with continental air" type snow for many, early March 1987: Even March 1988, following a mild winter, started with snow for some: I've seen March 1964 mentioned, this may have been the culprit:

Leeds, early on 4 March 2006: Leeds, 12 March 2006: Cleadon, approaching snow squall 24 March 2008: And the big one on 1 March 2018 in Exeter: and Exeter Cathedral, an unusual sight on 18 March 2018:

I don't have very fond memories of March '96 in Tyneside, yes there was some snow on the 11th/12th which stuck around for a few days and some wintry showers in the last week, but my main memory is how dull it was, with 15 consecutive sunless days from the 11th-25th in some places, and just 30 hours of sunshine at Durham. It particularly stuck out for cloudiness by contrast with the sunny Marches of 1994, 1995 and 1997 which had around 150 hours. And indeed, unlike many other such "easterly" months, March 1996 was even dull over much of north-west England, though not to as much of an extreme. I remember Tyneside avoided any substantial snow cover during March 1995 due to being sheltered from the dominant west to north-westerly flow, but there were many days with snow and hail showers, some accumulations during the showers (particularly from the northerly on the 27th) and thaws in the sunshine in between. As well as the snowfalls in the first week, the northerly on the 27th was followed by a frontal snowfall in many places on the 28th with around 3 inches at Lancaster for example. Early March 1998 had a couple of surprise snowfalls in Tyneside - overnight into the 1st from showers in a westerly flow, and early on the 6th from fronts. Inland parts of the region also had lying snow early on the 4th, with a very slight dusting also at Cleadon Village. Early March 2001 was snowy with 8cm accumulating at Cleadon on the 2nd and then a minimum of around -10C the following night, and snow showers fell, and accumulated away from the coast, on the 18th. I was in Leeds in March 2006 where there were two snowfalls of note, from showers that formed along a trough line on the 3rd, and frontal snow on the 12th. I remember that high ground temperatures initially restricted accumulations on the 12th but when the snow turned heavier it did settle on all surfaces. Easter 2008 (21-24 March) was snowy for some and I remember an impressive snow squall late on the 24th in Cleadon, though it only produced slight accumulations. March 2013 was exceptionally cold, living in the Vale of York area I didn't see any particularly big snowfalls but there were some impressive squally snow showers from an easterly on the 11th in particular. My parents reported lying snow early on 3 March 2015 in the Vale of York area from a showery west to south-westerly flow, similar to the snowfall they had on 14 January 2015. In Exeter I saw some wintry showers but nothing lay. In March 2018 I was in Exeter and for once this served me well as the first easterly delivered 17cm of lying snow and drifts of about a metre, followed by an ice storm which coated the deep powdery snow in a thin layer of ice, and the second easterly gave 10cm. The second snowfall again saw accumulations initially restricted due to high ground temperatures but when it got heavier it settled everywhere.

I was living in the Tyne and Wear area that month and there was some snow on the morning of 15 February which gave a dusting, and then frontal snow on the 16th which gave a more sizeable covering (probably a few centimetres or so) and then after early freezing fog on the 17th it thawed in the sun. Snow depths were more substantial via snow showers from a second easterly on the 21st - probably around the three inch mark - which had reports of thundersnow in Newcastle although my personal weather records for that day don't mention thunder, so it might have missed my location. The 22nd was a dry sunny day with a light snow flurry in the morning. However, as is often the case near the Tyneside coast, the frontal breakdown from the SW didn't deliver much because of the onshore winds which resulted mainly in rain and sleet rather than snow. There was one day, probably the 24th, when the rain/sleet turned to snow for a time. The snow took a while to thaw though, it was gone by the 26th. Locally the 1993/94 season was a little snowier than the 1995/96 one, thanks mainly to six consecutive days of snow cover even near the coast from the easterly of 20-22 November 1993, though the winter quarter (Dec/Jan/Feb) was snowier in 1995/96.

I'd say 5/10 here in Exeter, this location doesn't generally get much from easterlies unless a channel low engages the cold air (like on 1 March 2018) or we somehow hit the jackpot (18 March 2018). It would have been a 2 or 3 had it not been for a dusting on the Thursday morning which drifted by the roadside to a depth of about 1cm. There was also a sugar coating early on the Wednesday which quickly melted. Otherwise it was mostly cold, cloudy and not very pleasant down here. I tend to think that this easterly was only a true "beast" in Scotland, and maybe the north of England at a push, where the coldest air hit and there were plenty of snow showers off the North Sea. Further south, the coldest air didn't really get in, although it was of course cold enough to give a lot of snow over much of East Anglia and parts of the SE. I think our media is in danger of using the term "beast" for any sort of half-snowy easterly in the coming years. The one at the end of February/early March 2018 was definitely a "beast" as it was by many measures the coldest since January 1987, and that of 17/18 March 2018 could justifiably be called a "beast" because of how potent it was for that late in the season. But this one, for me, only really qualifies north of the Scottish border.

There was a north-south split as well as east-west split during the easterly spell just gone. From Lincolnshire northwards many areas had sunshine and snow showers in the east, mainly dry and sunny in the west, which gave opportunities for going out for a walk in crisp, sunny and, for some, snowy scenes. But further south it was mostly overcast as the easterlies brought in either frontal cloud or stratocumulus trapped underneath a cap on convection, associated with higher heights/lower thicknesses. I did get a bit of lying snow in Exeter on the Thursday, though it was just a sugar coating apart from beside the roadside where it had drifted. I did manage to make three snowballs and throw one of them at my window. I didn't feel "cheated" so much after that - in Exeter any lying snow is generally a bonus unless you've got a channel low running into continental air. I'm appreciating not having to put the heating on and having warmer rooms but can't say that the short-term outlook particularly thrills me. Some of the charts that are appearing from T+168 onwards are another matter - admittedly they have a "NW-SE split" look to them a la February 1998 so it would probably be grey and damp in north-western Britain, but down here in the south and also over much of eastern Britain it would probably be sunny as well as mild, giving good conditions for getting out and about more.

I enjoy quite a wide range of weather types so even though I'd be happy to see some more of the white stuff well into spring I'd also be quite happy with a Feb 2019 redux. That spell particularly in the last third of the month was quite special. I think the upcoming milder spell will be somewhat wetter and cloudier than that though! That precipitation isn't reaching Exeter, stuck down towards Plymouth, I'm not 100% confident that it would actually be snow as Exeter is being warmed by the English Channel now, a piercing wind but it's raised the temperature to 3C at the airport.

Very slight dusting in Exeter at 6:30am for the second day in a row. It was all gone by 9am yesterday. Today it's mostly gone by 9am but there are still bits of it left particularly by the roadsides where it drifted, about 20% cover overall so not enough to qualify as a Met Office snow lying day (which requires >= 50% cover). Rather feeble, but an advance on nothing, which at one time was looking like a significant possibility.

Yes, I'm still not out of it either, Thursday has potential for light snow and Saturday has potential for something heavier, though Saturday looks marginal with an ICONic run giving plenty of snow and others giving little or nothing.

There was a dusting on the ground at 6am in Exeter but I went back to sleep and when I woke up again at 9am it had all gone, bar a few rooftops that are sheltered from the sun. I suspected I might have dreamt about the snow, but no, the radar shows flurries over Exeter at the time I remembered seeing a dusting. Maybe it was one of those that was so thin it quickly vanished despite sub zero temperatures.

A very small amount of "snizzle" in Exeter this morning on the northern flank of the Channel snow streamer, so I can't claim that I haven't seen anything, but it was so light that it didn't even wet the ground, let alone accumulate.

After having had just a dusting on and off for most of the day, South Shields has a proper covering now: http://www.southshields-weather.co.uk/Today's_weather.htm

The 850hPa temps are fine, but although cold 850s are correlated with the instability generated over the North Sea, they aren't the main factor that determines convection. I reckon it's more to do with the lack of upper cold pooling and the relatively high thicknesses (516-522 dam in the north, 522-528 in the south). I remember that in contrast we had an easterly in late March 2014 which had somewhat unremarkable 850hPa temperatures (around -5 or so) but an upper cold pool resulted in deep instability and there was hail and thunder from it around South Shields. The current air mass is bringing just shallow instability. For example, here's the skew-t for East Lothian, showing instability up to around 750hPa and then a dry cap: While high enough to give sunshine and snow showers, the cap is limiting northern and central parts of eastern Britain to just light to moderate showers from shallow convection. For the kind of deep convection that we saw in the easterly at the end of February 2018 we'd be looking for that unstable zone to preferably extend up to at least 700hPa I reckon.

It is, yes. There's also skew-t charts for Newcastle in Netweather Extra but I was hesitant to post them here, but it suffices to say that they are similar to the East Lothian one today and show instability temporarily extending up to 700mb early on Wednesday. This is often the problem with easterlies, continental air is fundamentally dry and stable so you need the conditions to be right to give deep instability (relatively high 1000-500mb thicknesses may be an issue in this particular case for example). That's why I used to say I preferred a N/NE type of flow as those are usually easily unstable enough as they bring low thicknesses/upper cold pools down from the Arctic and have a long sea track, giving deep instability, but in recent years they often haven't been cold enough.

The skew-t charts show that while conditions have got unstable enough to produce sunshine and snow showers, the instability is relatively shallow with a cap at around 750mb: Ideally you'd want it to be unstable up to 700mb or higher to produce the heavier stuff. Similarly, the GFS CAPE/LI charts are only pointing towards modest instability at present. There are hints that instability may increase for a time early on Wednesday as the north-easterly with lower thicknesses heads in, with the profile being unstable up to 700mb rather than the current 750mb, which would allow those towering cumulus and cumulonimbus tops to climb higher and bring heavier showers. Winds will be falling lighter by then, but the latest GFS precipitation charts do point towards snow showers heading a fair way inland from the North Sea in this region of the UK, less so further south.

Nowt here as expected, and chances for Tuesday and Thursday/Friday appear to be receding, though the latest GFS run shows some light snowfall for around here early on Thursday.

I'd been thinking that, especially as I lived in Norwich from 2007 to 2011. However, I've been into the East Anglia/south east thread and it looks like although Norwich largely missed out for most of the day, the radar has been glitching recently and it has been snowing there.

I'm down in south Devon at the moment where we're likely to get zilch unless the frontal attack from the SW pays dividends, but I'm set to move up to Lincoln at some point this spring depending on Covid and the speed of the vaccine roll-out, so should be in a much better position for "easterly" snowfalls by next winter. It's good having Neil Bradshaw's webcam updating every 10 minutes or so as it means that I can at least spy on the weather from my old home town (I grew up in South Shields and later Cleadon through the 1990s and on and off from then until 2012). It's often interesting in these easterly setups in South Shields seeing the temperature climb to 2C in the clear intervals and fall to around freezing in showers, which I expect to start happening tomorrow and Tuesday as the thicknesses lower and we start getting more potent convection coming in off the North Sea. It's not unusual to have a stratocumulus & graupel-fest on the first day of a spell like this (26 February 2018 was an example) so I don't see much grounds for concern yet for this region.