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BY PAUL SIMONS SEVERAL newspapers reported last week an apparent blunder by the Met Office’s new supercomputer. The recently installed £27.5 million NEC SX-8 was heralded as a big improvement in weather forecasting, and for Sunday, April 24 it predicted a thoroughly wet afternoon over London. But instead the skies remained gloriously blue and warm. The press claimed this was a big mistake, but was it? Heavy rains did sweep up from the south, although the stormclouds moved more slowly than expected and did not reach London until night. The mistake was the timing of the rain, not where it would fall — small comfort, though, for anyone who cancelled a barbecue. The new computer looks at the weather in much greater detail than its predecessors. It works with a grid of squares whose sides are 4km long — this yields a vastly greater resolution than the 12km squares used previously. But at this level of detail, it is possible to miss small upsets in the atmosphere which can sometimes build up into much bigger problems, leading to forecasting mistakes. But if the entire Earth and its atmosphere were monitored by weather sensors, these tiny local upsets would be found and make forecasts — at least in the short term — incredibly accurate. That is the holy grail of weather forecasting, and with its new computing power the Met Office has taken a big stride towards it. Link to Weather Eye source

BY PAUL SIMONS ON THIS day in 1775 Benjamin Franklin completed the first scientific study of the Gulf Stream. It began with a puzzle: why were British mail ships taking days or weeks longer to cross the Atlantic than heavier American merchant ships? The British authorities sought an answer from Benjamin Franklin, postmaster general of the American colonies at that time. Franklin consulted Timothy Folger, a sea captain on a whaling ship, who described an Atlantic current called the Gulf Stream. The current swept northwards from the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, and American ships used it to sail faster to England but avoided it on the return journey. He added that the whaling ships occasionally crossed the current and met British ships struggling to sail against it, but their captains refused the advice of “simple” Americans. Folger drew a sketch of the Gulf Stream, but when Franklin had it printed and presented to the British the chart was ignored. Franklin, though, was intrigued by the Gulf Stream, and in 1775 he mapped it on a journey from England to America. He found that the current was some 3.5C warmer than the surrounding sea, and by taking regular temperature readings of the water could trace its course. “The thermometer may be an useful instrument to a navigator,” he wrote, also noting that the water colour and the seaweeds changed in the current. Link to Weather Eye source

BY PAUL SIMONS GARDENERS looking to sow seeds and bed in new plants may well be pleased with the wet weather this month, but have the April showers saved much of Britain from drought? For the first time in ages, this month’s weather has been average across the UK. Temperatures were average, and normal amounts of rain fell, even in dry regions such as East Anglia and southeast England which had very little rain this winter. However, April is actually one of our driest months of the year across Britain, despite its wet reputation, and the recent rains may be too little, too late. On April 22 the country’s first hosepipe ban of the year was imposed on parts of Surrey, and will stay in force depending on how wet the rest of the spring and summer are. The supplier responsible, Sutton and East Surrey Water, relies on boreholes deep underground for most of its water, and these supplies are recharged only from winter rainfall. A similar pattern applies across much of Southern and Eastern England. Now that trees are coming into leaf and the sunshine is growing hotter, much of the rainwater is evaporating before it has a chance to sink deep into the ground. The dry regions need a much longer spell of rain, and there could be a glimmer of hope — long-range forecasts are hinting at a fairly wet May. Link to Weather Eye source

BY PAUL SIMONS IT SOUNDS too good to be true: this Bank Holiday weekend could see some hot weather. Warm winds sweeping up from Spain are expected to bring some sunshine — though heavy showers will break out in many places across Britain as a low-pressure system jostles in from the Atlantic. The May Bank Holiday is often cursed by horrendous weather. When Jim Callaghan’s Government introduced the holiday in 1978 it was seen as a good way of taking advantage of the improving spring weather. But that first May Day was a complete washout and bitterly cold. Scotland, which did not have a Bank Holiday, was dry and sunny. Since then the holiday has often been cursed with rain, frost, gales, thunderstorms, hail, waterspouts and even flooding. In 1997 there were snowstorms — Arctic winds swept down heavy rains which turned to deep snow as far south as Wales and Derbyshire. In fact the whole of that May was so miserable that it was colder than April. Which raises the question of why bother having an early May Bank Holiday at all. At this time of year the seas around the UK are still relatively cold, often leaving the seaside chilly and wrapped in mist. Worse still, bitter easterly winds can sweep down from north Europe and leave the entire country shivering. Link to Weather Eye source

BY PAUL SIMONS WHAT will the weather be like for election day, May 5? Computer forecast models are changing as conditions remain unsettled for the next few days, but the weather may settle down by next Thursday — most of the UK could be fairly dry and warm, although the North West and Midlands may have sunshine and showers. Piers Corbyn at weatheraction.com uses solar activity to make weather forecasts, and he predicts sunshine and showers, with the rain sweeping in from the South West. But does the weather make any difference to an election? The conventional wisdom is that Conservatives benefit from bad weather because their voters are more likely to brave the elements, and this can be important if turnout is low. In June 1970 Edward Heath won for the Conservatives on a day of thunderstorms, and rain fell on all three of Margaret Thatcher’s election victories. John Major’s victory in 1992 was largely dry and sunny. The 1997 election was a fine day when Labour won a landslide, but Labour’s victory in 2001 was on a mixed bag of weather. Perhaps more important is the weather before elections. The hard winter of 1947 led to powercuts, fuel rationing and misery across Britain. The electorate is said to have blamed Labour for the problems, and voted it out in the 1950 election. Link to Weather Eye source

BY PAUL SIMONS A HUGE invasion of painted lady butterflies has swept into California over the past few weeks. An estimated one billion butterflies have been migrating northwards from the deserts of northern Mexico and southwestern US, creating clouds of tortoiseshell-coloured flapping wings. The flight of the painted lady butterflies takes place every spring, but this year’s migration has been about a thousand times greater than normal, thanks to the weather. The butterflies overwinter as eggs laid in the deserts, and when these hatch in springtime they need lots of plant food. This winter a weak El Niño off the coasts of California and Mexico brought unusually warm seawater which in turn encouraged exceptionally heavy rains to sweep inland. Los Angeles was flooded, parts of California experienced landslides and the Sierra Nevada mountains had record-breaking snowfalls. In the deserts the torrential rains triggered a spectacular boom in plants with masses of wild flowers, and when the caterpillars hatched they went on a feeding frenzy. When these turned into butterflies they began migrating northwards in search of more food and a place to mate. In Britain we have our own invasion of migrating painted ladies, although it does not happen until the end of May and early June. The butterflies come from North Africa and southern Europe, and their numbers vary enormously — with temperatures and rainfall thought to play a big part. Link to Weather Eye source

BY PAUL SIMONS WINTER has not slackened its grip on some parts of the northern hemisphere at present, and some unexpected fresh snowfalls are giving ski enthusiasts a chance to enjoy themselves late in the season. Big snowstorms swept the Alps last week. On the slopes of the Zugspitze, Germany’s highest mountain, four days of storms added 10cm (3.9in) to the total snow depth of 3.5m (11.6ft). Heavy snows refreshed slopes across the Alps, but many resorts in Switzerland, Austria and Italy are closed now. Resorts that are still open, however, have enjoyed excellent conditions, especially in France where many slopes are still open. However, an avalanche killed two British ski workers at Tignes on Thursday and another at Gourette in the Pyrenees killed a skier. The extraordinary snow season in California continues to amaze enthusiasts. Last Wednesday the Sierra Nevada had another 23cm of snow. On Friday a blizzard brought many parts of Wyoming to a halt and left 30cm of snow, before dumping up to 30cm of snow on parts of the Midwest and Appalachian mountains on Sunday, with a foot of snow falling in parts of Michigan. Many US resorts are extending their season into May, and if that is not enough for dedicated skiers, the first significant snows of the year have fallen on the mountains of New Zealand. Link to Weather Eye source

BY PAUL SIMONS IN A memorable scene in the film Twister, a truck flew around in the vortex of a tornado, along with a tractor, a cow, pieces of houses and other debris. It was all computer-generated animation, of course. But now an American cameraman, Sean Casey, plans to film a real tornado by driving a truck right inside the vortex. He will use an armour-plated truck weighing about 6 tons, which, it is claimed, can withstand winds of up to 160mph. It also has a chassis that can be lowered flush with the ground to avoid being overturned, and once inside the tornado Casey will film it from a turret on the top of the truck. However, severe tornados have wind speeds reaching up to 300mph, and Casey’s venture could end up like the flying truck in Twister. For example, on May 27, 1931, an express passenger train was hit by a tornado in Minnesota and all 12 of its carriages, each weighing about 70 tons, were blown off the tracks; one of them was hurled 80ft with 117 passengers inside, killing one person and injuring 57 others. Another danger is the debris which shoots through a tornado like bullets. In 1896, for example, a tornado shot a large wooden plank right through a wrought-iron plate on a bridge in St Louis, Missouri. Link to Weather Eye source

Bloody awful this morning :blink: . I got soaked when I was out earlier, but the weatheronline radar shows the rain moving away to the north and east. Very dark though. Temperature: 10ºc Feels like: 8ºc Humidity: 94% Dew Point: 9ºc Wind: 8 mph E UV Index: 0 Low Visibility: 2.8 miles Pressure: 29.74 in and steady Sunrise: 5:57 AM Sunset: 8:15 PM As reported at Bournemouth, United Kingdom last updated 4/23/05 7:50 AM Local Time

BY PAUL SIMONS CLIMATE change is raising the spectre of industrial unrest in Carlisle. The city council’s grass cutters, indignant at having to work extra hours because the grass is growing faster and for longer, are threatening to go on strike. The grass-cutting season last year ran from March to November, instead of April to September. In fact, the grass is growing so fast in the spring and summer that the cutters are having to walk an extra five miles a day as they mow for longer hours. “People were complaining that the grass looked a real mess because it was growing so long,” says Jed Craig, the GMB union official for the region. “But with this extra workload many of our longer-serving workers simply can’t cope.” The residents of Carlisle may also feel the effects of the extra workload because the council is proposing a big increase in its grass-cutting budget. The changing climate is being blamed for the huge increase in grass growth, especially with recent mild winters. And Carlisle is not the only place seeing significant changes in the grass season. The UK Phenology Network uses volunteers across the country to record seasonal changes in nature, and they logged the earliest lawn-cutting this season on December 14 in parts of southern England. This reflects a marked trend over the past 20 years, in which milder winters have extended the grass-cutting season in Britain by as much as a month. Link to Weather Eye source

BY PAUL SIMONS ALTHOUGH Britain is relatively safe from tsunamis, there is speculation that a tsunami in 1607 killed about 2,000 people along the Bristol Channel. According to a BBC Two Timewatch programme on April 3, a tsunami up to 32ft (10m) high swamped some 200sq miles (500sq km) of South Wales and Somerset; “Huge and mighty hills of water” were said at the time to have rushed inland, catching people unawares. The programme suggested that the tsunami was triggered by an earthquake off southwest Ireland. But oceanographers at the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory, Liverpool, say there is no record of a tsunami anywhere else in striking distance. Also, parts of eastern England were flooded, even though a tsunami from Ireland could not have reached there. Instead, the oceanographers suggest that the disaster was caused by a storm surge riding on an exceptional high tide. A storm’s strong winds and low atmospheric pressure can drive a huge mass of water into shallow coastlines — as happened with the storm surge along the East Coast of England in 1953 which killed some 300 people. In the confines of the Bristol Channel a storm surge and a high tide could be funnelled into a devastating flood. In fact the only authentic record of a tsunami in Britain was in 1755, when an earthquake off Portugal swept 10ft- waves along the south coast of Cornwall. Link to Weather Eye source

BY PAUL SIMONS IN THE heart of Alaska an annual betting competition has accidentally offered a record of global warming. In the winter of 1917 bored railway workers in the town of Nenana built a large wooden tripod on the frozen Tenana River and held a sweepstake on what date in spring the ice would melt and the tripod fall over. A jackpot of $800 was collected (around $11,000 in today’s terms), and the winning date turned out to be April 30. The sweepstake has been held every year since 1917, and has grown into what is now known as the Nenana Ice Classic. It attracts bets from all over the world, and the sweepstake — tickets cost $2.50 and are for sale in Alaska only — has a kitty of around $300,000. The decent prize money also encouraged the citizens of Nenana to keep accurate note of the ice melt each spring, and this record has given scientists an unexpected insight into climate change in Alaska. The yearly variations in the thaw are considerable — the earliest date was April 20 (1998) and the latest was May 20 (1964). But, on average, the spring melt arrives more than five days earlier than it did 80 years ago. This pattern of spring arriving earlier has been fairly consistent except for a colder period from 1940 to 1975, since when the warming trend has accelerated, and matches the rising temperatures across most northern regions of the world. Link to Weather Eye source

BY PAUL SIMONS CARBON dioxide levels in the atmosphere have reached record levels. At the end of 2004 a concentration of 378 parts per million (ppm) was measured at a remote mountain laboratory in Hawaii, far from any local pollution. The levels have increased every year since measurements began in 1958. This steady increase is driving world temperatures upwards, but because carbon dioxide is an invisible, odourless gas, it is difficult to appreciate its huge impact on the global climate. Botanists, though, have detected a remarkable sign of the rising levels. In the swamps of Florida, dead vegetation becomes preserved in acidic, peaty deposits. According to the American Journal of Botany this month, the leaves of long-buried trees, shrubs and ferns reveal a striking trend. Over the past 60 years the plants have developed fewer pores in their leaves as carbon dioxide levels rose about 1ppm each year. Plants feed on carbon dioxide, absorbing it through their leaf pores and turning it into sugars using sunlight and water, the process of photosynthesis. But with so much more carbon dioxide in the air, plants can afford to develop fewer pores. Because the pores also evaporate water, that has the added advantage of cutting the plant’s water losses — particularly important for plants in drought-stricken regions. Link to Weather Eye source

Fantastically sunny here now after a very wet night, and a bit of an iffy morning where it looked like there could be a lot of showers. But since then, there's been blue skies without a cloud in the sky, and it feels warm. A max of 13ºc

BY PAUL SIMONS ONCE upon a time a gelatinous mass fell from a shooting star and began to terrorise a small town by consuming its residents. This was the plot of The Blob (1958), a cult sci-fi film starring Steve McQueen, and the idea may have been inspired by a real phenomenon. On September 26, 1950, two policemen in Philadelphia discovered a quivering ball of jelly about 6ft across lying in a street. When one of the officers tried to pick it up, the ball disintegrated and within half an hour had vanished. The case received much publicity but the nature of the blob remained a mystery. There have been many other reports of translucent, gelatinous balls, called pwdre ser, from the Welsh meaning “the rot of the stars”. They often appear in the early morning, then usually dry up as the day warms up. The weather seems to play some part in the appearance of pwdre ser. In June 1978 a woman in Cambridge reported that a white jelly the size of a football had glided on to her lawn during a heavy rainstorm. The blob remained intact even when she prodded it, but the following morning had vanished. One theory is that pwdre ser is a gelatinous goo which oozes from frogs. When they are caught by large birds such as crows, it drops it to the ground and the jelly swells up in rain. Link to Weather Eye source

BY PAUL SIMONS IF YOU look at the previous day’s maximum and minimum temperatures in the “Highs and Lows” on this page, you often find that Redhill, Surrey, records the coldest temperature in the UK. On Tuesday, for instance, Redhill sank to -1.5C (29F), and it can achieve subzero levels as late as May. David Ellis from Camberley wrote to ask what makes Redhill so cold, given that it lies in the South East, usually one of the mildest regions in Britain. The weather station at Redhill is actually sited at a small airfield outside the town, and sits in a shallow grassy dip flanked by the hills of the North Downs and an embankment along the nearby M23 motorway. On a clear and calm night, cold air can slide down the surrounding slopes like water, collecting in an invisible pool around the weather station below. This feature is known as a frost hollow, and such places are prone not only to frost but also mist or fog from early evening until the following morning. In the case of the Redhill hollow, the cold is made even worse by the nature of the underlying sandy soil, which is very poor at holding heat. Since the Redhill station’s temperature readings are anomalous and not representative of the surrounding area, the Met Office is considering moving its instruments. One great disadvantage of such a move is that the Redhill station records conditions which reflect those in the many other frost hollows across the sheltered valleys of southeast England. Gardeners in these places have to cope with far shorter growing seasons than those in their surrounding areas. Link to Weather Eye source

BY PAUL SIMONS YOU may be having trouble deciding whether to take out an umbrella or sunglasses each day, as the weather this month lives up to its fickle reputation — “The uncertain glory of an April day!” Shakespeare called it in Two Gentlemen of Verona. Some of the blame for the changeable conditions lies with the jet stream. This river of strong wind flows around the globe, about five miles above the surface, and marks a battlefront between cold northerly air and warm southerly air. In April the jet stream often meanders in great loops north towards the Arctic then twists south towards the equator. As it shifts position over the UK the weather can change quite dramatically; even a slight shift in the jet stream can suddenly reverse the wind direction on the ground, switching us rapidly from warm southerlies to cold northerlies, or vice versa. This week the jet stream looped down from the north over Britain, dragging in a depression with heavy outbursts of rain. On Saturday the jet stream position is expected to move, allowing high pressure from the Azores to blow warm southerlies into much of England and Wales, although another shift will probably let a depression sweep in from the west soon afterwards. This means that the London Marathon on Sunday should start dry and mild but it could turn wet before the slower runners finish. And for next week it looks like umbrellas rather than sunglasses. Link to Weather Eye source

I can't quite believe there isn't a thread up about this already I had the most amazing storm here in Highcliffe today. The day started gorgeous, I looking out of the window at school at 10 and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. When we went outside for break at 11, there were a few more clouds, but it was warm. The forecast earlier that morning had suggested a few heavy showers, but being on the coast we were expected to stay driest. I had a 2 hour exam, came out around 1:15 and there was a lot more cloud, more threatening and the floor was a little wet obviously due to some rain around 10 minutes before. Then we had our lunch break, and we played footy on the field. During that time there were 2 lightning strikes that I was lucky to both see. One of them was accompanied by very loud thunder, for a split-second everyone goes silent, then you hear the screams lol We came in at 2:15, not suspecting what was to happen next. We had heard distant rumbes of thunder from around 1:30pm, but during the lesson at around 2:30pm, there was a lightning strike and then the most massive thunder you have ever heard. It must have been right above us, it physically shook the windows. Then there was another one, with nearly exactly the same consequences. When we left school we later found out that one of the strikes migt have hit our Technology block, or one of the portable huts. I wouldn't have been surprised. So overall, by far the loudest thunder I have ever heard, and a fantastic day weather-wise EDIT: Currently having heavy rain, and just had some hail

BY PAUL SIMONS AN AWESOME hailstorm battered the city of Chongqing, southern China, on Friday, despite valiant attempts to disrupt the storm with cannon fire. Around 2,100 anti-aircraft shells packed with tiny particles were fired into the storm clouds, but to no avail. Hailstones up to 13cm (5in) across wrecked thousands of houses, killed 18 people and injured another 125. Squads of hail-gunners are spread across many parts of China. They blast away at the first signs of hailstorms — the technique, it is claimed, helps to prevent large hail forming. The theory is that particles from the exploding shells provide seeds inside the cloud for water to freeze on to. This robs the embryonic hailstones of the extra water they need to grow larger, producing much smaller hailstones or rain. Fighting off hail with cannon fire has had a chequered history. Special anti-hail cannons were widely used in Europe in the late 1800s to prevent hailstone damage, largely to vineyards. Exploding shells were shot up into storm clouds from tall, cone-shaped cannons and the smoke from the explosions was believed to stop hailstones forming. But this was a perilous activity — many people were killed or injured by premature explosions on the ground. Nevertheless, anti-hail artillery is still used in Russia and Kenya as well as China. Some farmers in America and Australia also have tried firing sonic waves into hailstorms, believing that the blasts disrupt the formation of hailstones. But most scientists remain sceptical, saying there is no way to prove that any lack of hail from a storm would not have happened naturally. Link to Weather Eye source

BY PAUL SIMONS IF THERE is a green in paradise, then it cannot be another green than this one, the real green of hope,” wrote Jules Verne in his novel Le rayon vert (The Green Ray) in 1882. He was describing the elusive green flash, a burst of emerald light from a setting, or rising sun. Peter Carpenter from Monmouth wrote asking what created this phenomenon, and Jules Verne has some of the answers: “Sunset at the seaside . . . the instant of the last ray of light when the sky is perfectly clear.” A calm atmosphere is also needed, so that layers of air of different temperature separate out. This sandwich effect in the atmosphere creates a lens that bends and distorts light, rather like a mirage, and explains why the top of a setting sun can look slightly flattened. As the top edge of the sun slips below the horizon, it sinks through the various layers of air. These tease out the component colours of sunlight, running through the spectrum from orange to yellow, and then for maybe a second or two comes the green flash. The flash can be seen from Britain but our atmosphere is rarely calm enough for it to happen. The tropics are better. If you go looking for a green flash, take care not to damage your eyes by looking directly at the sun — or invest in filtered glass, available from astronomy equipment shops. Link to Weather Eye source

BY PAUL SIMONS SATELLITE photographs of northeast Scotland on Sunday revealed a fabulous sight. The region was covered in a huge blanket of high, bright and wispy cirrus clouds streaming downwind of the Highlands. A flow of warm, wet air had swept in from the Atlantic and encountered the Highlands. As the humid air was thrust up over the mountains, the air pressure dropped, it cooled and condensed into water droplets, forming thick clouds and rain. As the air streamed eastwards it hit a lid of more stable air higher up, and the remaining moisture produced a carpet of bright cirrus clouds. At this altitude, the air temperature is subzero and cirrus clouds contain ice crystals, making them appear sparkling bright white. High-level winds also twist and spread the ice into wispy strands, often looking like delicate white feathers – the word cirrus in Latin means a “curl” of hair. Cirrus can also warn of bad weather on the way, “the locks of the approaching storm” that Shelley mentioned in his Ode to the West Wind. This is especially true if the cirrus grows increasingly thick and comes from a westerly direction. But if the cirrus spreads across the sky in irregular, isolated patterns without much movement, it is often a sign of dry and fine weather that will persist for a while. Link to Weather Eye source

BY PAUL SIMONS STRANGE as it may seem, dandruff may play an important role in the world’s climate. Surprisingly large amounts of dandruff and other biological materials, including skin, fur, pollen, spores and bacteria, float around in the skies like tiny flotsam. Along with mineral dust and pollution, these microscopic particles, called aerosols, can become so thick that they create striking colours in the sky — the blue haze over forests is made from aerosols released from trees, and vivid sunsets from volcanic dust. According to a report in the journal Science on April 1, a billion tonnes of biological aerosols, including dandruff, escape into the atmosphere each year. These account for about 25 per cent of all aerosols in the air globally, and reach even the remotest parts of the world, such as Antarctica. With this much biological debris floating around in the atmosphere, does it alter the climate? The biological aerosols may help to make rain, by helping water droplets to form in clouds. They could also cool the world’s climate and help to cut global warming, by shading the Earth’s surface. They may also cool temperatures by making clouds brighter and so reflect more sunlight and solar heat back into space. But there is a darker side to biological aerosols. They could also add to global warming, especially at night, by contributing to fog and low-level cloud which help to trap heat on the ground. Link to Weather Eye source

Clear blue skies this morning on what is a cold start, down to -2ºc overnight It feels bitter when you are walking into the wind, currently just above freezing.

BY PAUL SIMONS TOMORROW is the anniversary of the greatest volcanic explosion in history. On April 10, 1815, Tambora in Indonesia erupted with about 150 cubic km (36 cubic miles) of ash and around 200 million tonnes of sulphuric acid. Some 10,000 people were killed directly by the eruption, but many more were killed indirectly across the world. As the volcanic debris shot into the stratosphere, about 44 km (27 miles) high, it was swept worldwide and enveloped the Earth in a veil that blocked out the Sun’s heat. Temperatures plunged, and the following year was so cold it was called “the year without a summer”, when snow fell in London in May. Continental Europe was hit even harder — with devastation from the Napoleonic Wars and stores of food dangerously low, the cold and incessant rain led to widespread crop failures and famine. In France the price of bread tripled and food riots broke out. In many parts of Europe, armed groups raided farms, and grain markets were looted. Famines were widespread and may have triggered an epidemic of typhus that left 65,000 dead in Ireland alone. Conditions were possibly even worse in northeast America, where frosts struck New England in June and August, ruining crops. Conditions grew so bad that in the following months many New Englanders gave up and migrated westwards in the search for a better life. Link to Weather Eye source

BY PAUL SIMONS THIS week’s rains have come as a relief to many areas of Britain which could have been facing water shortages in the summer. And there could be more rain to come: long-range forecasts for the month indicate that more depressions will come in off the Atlantic, via Iceland, bringing bouts of cold and wet weather. April has a reputation for breaking March droughts and replenishing worryingly low water resources — Geoffrey Chaucer recognised as much in the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales: “Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote/ The droghte of March hath perced to the roote.” One extraordinary dry spell began in 1995 and did not end until April 1998 in some parts of England, when torrential rains produced the wettest April in England and Wales since 1818. This April is unlikely to be drenched all month long, however. We can expect some dry, fine spells between the rain as high-pressure systems battle with the depressions over the UK. By the end of the month, the anti-cyclones may well have the upper hand, and despite the recent outbursts of cold, the month’s average temperature is expected to be just above normal. Link to Weather Eye source