North/South splits from Easterlies (The North is warm and sunny but the South is very wet)

[baddie]

Im wondering what other times the North/South contrast was seen, where the South is wet and places from the Midlands northwards are warm and sunny

My list is :
6th September 2024
2nd May 2024
8th April 2019

Im struggling to think of other days that were like this. Does this type of contrast occur during winter/early-spring but with warm air instead of cold

Edited November 10 by baddie

[Summer8906]

May 1984 and 1994 are the classic examples of this, I think. Both poor months in the south (dull, cool and wet, with 1984 probably worse than 1994) but apparently much better further north. In both cases, of course, June and July were very much better. Also in both cases the first 10 days of May weren't too bad and it improved right at the very, very end - with the period from around the 12th to the 28th perhaps being the worst.

 

Edited November 10 by Summer8906

[baddie]

 Summer8906 Im mainly talking about individual days. E.g 6th September 2024 (26c and sunny in my location, but very wet in the South). 

Edited November 10 by baddie

[Summer8906]

 baddie Ah ok. I'd guess that both those months of May had a fair few but couldn't identify the individual days.

Edited November 10 by Summer8906

[Metwatch]

I reckon you could find a day with such a setup happening at least every year / every other year, but it would be take a long time to go through day by day reanalysis charts to find them. Best approach to this would be, as mentioned above, to look through months specifically that often had that reversed north / south split and look into the days within those months.

Edited November 11 by Metwatch

[A Face like Thunder]

 Summer8906 The Spring Bank Holiday weekend in 1984 was dreadful for us camping in Kent but sunny and warm for friends staying in Northumberland.

Mid-September 1968 was a classic with floods resulting from a stationary low over Southern England and blue skies further north. 

[Summer of 95]

May 2000. Was this the best example of a "reverse SE v the rest" month?

(Mean max/rain/sun):

Braemar: 14.8, 31.8, 239.3

Paisley: 17.3, 33.8, 244.7

Valley: 15.7, 46.0, 285.9

Shawbury: 16.5, 43.6, 211.2

Now we cross the Hereford-Lincoln line and suddenly it gets a lot duller and wetter, but the opposite way to normal:

Ross on Wye: 16.9, 57.4, 181.9

Oxford: 17.2, 67.7, 189.8

Cambridge: 16.8, 83.8, 161.2

Manston: 15.8, 108.2, 178.9 

I remember it not being a bad month at all round here, often warm, sunny and dry and a welcome change from the horrible April. In contrast to months like May 1994 and August 2021 when the good weather was largely confined to the far NW, this month the bad weather was mostly confined to the SE quadrant.

[SummerShower]

May 2018 had a whole week of this, from memory towards the end.  It would often be wet and thundery in the south, but dry and very warm further north.

[LetItSnow]

 SummerShower From the 24th onwards it was very wet down here in the south-east with frequent thunderstorms. The 25th, 27th/28th and 29th all brought torrential downpours locally. That final week meant that despite the warm and sunny periods in April and May it was a very wet spring.

Edited November 17 by LetItSnow

[baddie]

 LetItSnow Spring 2018 was very wet in March and the first half of April. Second half was mostly dry bar the last weeks of April and May

 SummerShower  After checking the stats, Only May 29th 2018 seen persistant rain in the South but sunshine further North, and even where I was there was North Sea cloud that took until 3pm to burn off (And lasted all day near coasts)

Edited November 17 by baddie

[LetItSnow]

 baddie Wet enough for a large swathe of England to record a wetter than average spring. Overrated season imo.

[baddie]

 LetItSnow March 2018 : 3/10, April 2018 : 4/10, May 2018 : 10/10 - It is certainly overrated, as just because May was excellent, doesnt mean Spring was good overall because March and April were poor, even if they had roughly a week of memorable weather (Mid-March to Mid-April 2018 was an awful month-long period and the week after the heat in April was also dire). I wouldnt rate that Spring more than a 5/10


To stay on topic, April 21st 2014 was also thundery in the South (Though warm) but from the Midlands northwards it was dry with a misty morning followed by a warm and sunny afternoon

Edited November 18 by baddie

[Harry233]

 SummerShower May 2018 was a fantastic month especially in the final week here. I didn’t record a maximum of below 22.C from the 23rd. Never experienced a May like it. Even in the first week where it wasn’t especially warm we still had lots of sunshine. Rate it a lot better than May 2020 even though 2020 was sunnier. May 2018 was generally always warm aside from the first week but 2020 had a couple of brief but notably chilly northerly blasts here which kept it very cool at times.

[Harry233]

 LetItSnow March was dismal that year, April was also very poor in the first half but was a bit better in the second. May was nearly unbeatable here however. It was a bizarre spring, completely flipped from winter to summer with very little spring like conditions although do have very good memories from the season, also brought us the best summer I can remember 

[Squally77]

Spring 2018 was a strange one, nature was really quite behind until the second half of April when we had that mini heatwave, nature caught up. I remember getting quite bad hay-fever because all the trees seemed to come into blossom at once.