Unusually Dry For April

[Cymro]

Anybody else noticed how dry it has been was down walking by the river yesterday and the water level is the lowest I have ever seen it we've had nearly a fortnight without proper rain now seems incredibly dry for April for me.

[ANYWEATHER]

Yep 13mms [0.5 inches] to date this month at the Vale Of Evesham Weather Station, and judging by the latest outputs I dont think we will see much change in the forseeable future!

[DiagonalRedLine]

Yeah, it has been quite dry recently with high pressure helping to keep much of the precipitation out the way and while there was some rain and showers at the beginning of the month, there has barely been much rain around. Mind you, yesterday delivered a spot of light drizzle/rain in some places, although the ground was still virtually dry.

Normally, April is usually associated with a sunshine and showery setup, with North Westerly, Northerly or North-Easterly winds being at their most frequent around this period. Certainly sometimes, though, this is not always the case.

[Andy Bown]

It's not that unusual for April to be dry here...

2007 = 10mm

2008 = 56.5mm

2009 = 31.5mm

2010 = 33mm so far

[SteveB]

Its been bone dry for the past two weeks, but at the beginning of the month the firsts few days were fairly wet, giving 28.2mm of rain.

[TonyH]

Well we are only half way, fairly dry but far from unusual.

27mm so far.

14.4mm was the total in April 2007- that was unusual indeed!

[Stormyking]

Hmm, Yeh i thought April 2007 was drier infact i only remember it raining just the one day in April 2007 and that was from 1 light shower on the 26th of April I think

[londonsnow]

fear not, natures balancing act will soon sort things out. get the umbrella ready

[reef]

7.1mm here so far, so rather dry. However compared to April 2007 which had 1.5mm all month, its in a different league!

[joggs]

7.1mm here so far, so rather dry. However compared to April 2007 which had 1.5mm all month, its in a different league!

Hi reef and all! just signed away me life tonight after floating a couple years! agreed being a dry month so far here to. anybody know the driest april ever was? thanx in advance:good:

[damianslaw]

fear not, natures balancing act will soon sort things out. get the umbrella ready

Yes thats my worry, we are having a rather prolonged dry period here in the Lake District, last month was very dry and FEB and Jan were quite dry, alongside dec, all coming after the wettest Nov on record. Nature has a habit of quickly balancing itself out, it would be sods law come the summer we see the return of the atlantic and its rain..

I shouldn't be so pessimistic should I..

As for April, it is often one of the driest months of the year here, a dry April is nothing out of the unusual, there is often a prolonged dry period at some stage in most springs lasting 2-3 weeks.

[reef]

Hi reef and all! just signed away me life tonight after floating a couple years! agreed being a dry month so far here to. anybody know the driest april ever was? thanx in advance:good:

Welcome to the forum

Nationwide, April 1938 is probably a contender for the driest April on record. It had just 7.1mm:

http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadukp/data/monthly/HadEWP_monthly_qc.txt

More recently April 2007 had just 9.5mm. It was followed by 121.0mm, 154.7mm and 139.4mm in May, June and July though!

[Ben_Cambs]

April 2007 was an incredibly dry spell of Cambridge, only 1.7mm rain fell in the entire month. Another figure suggested 0.9mm but only for nature to make us pay the next month with 131.1mm!

[Guest]

We've already had more or less the monthly average for April here. However, that all fell on two days so bizarrely enough it has actually been dry in terms of days with rain. The average number of days with rain in April here is 11 or 12 days per month according to the Met-O:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/averages/regmapavge.html#

So by mid-month we should be on 5 or 6 days of rain and we're not, so by that definition it has been "dry". This month is going to be one of those months that you can use the statistics to tell completely different stories about what the weather has been doing.

[azores92]

it has been a very dry start to the year indeed here, with any unsettled spell being weak and short lasting, and blocking highs being the recurring theme. so far we have had 145 mm this year, and that is really well below the average.

[Weather-history]

Rainfall totals for April 1938, driest April on record for England and Wales

[J07]

Isn't April normally a fairly dry month for much of the UK? (Or am I thinking of May?).

[Weather-history]

Isn't April normally a fairly dry month for much of the UK? (Or am I thinking of May?).

Yes, overall April tends to be the driest month of the year on average based on the England and Wales rainfall figures since 1766

It is the month that has the most sub-10mm months (6 in total)

The month with the least number of 100mm+ months (15 in total: 3 of which occurred within 4 years)

98 out of 244 Aprils were sub 50mm.

[summer blizzard]

Nationally, i believe that we are under 20mm of precipitation, so about 30% monthly average, so it is a very dry month, and looking like continuing.

[Stargazer]

Yes, overall April tends to be the driest month of the year on average based on the England and Wales rainfall figures since 1766

It is the month that has the most sub-10mm months (6 in total)

The month with the least number of 100mm+ months (15 in total: 3 of which occurred within 4 years)

98 out of 244 Aprils were sub 50mm.

I believe April is the driest month of the year over much of the UK, with the exception of southernmost counties (in particular) where July tends to be drier and one or two small areas where February is driest. I think I read somewhere that areas where July is the driest month of the year tend to have less convective activity in summer.

Anyway, here in Reading this month has certainly been drier than average so far.

[Snowyowl9]

April 2007 was the driest I`ve seen at 11mm,so far this month just 10mm

April`s use to be much wetter than this in the 80`s

[MP-R]

Isn't April normally a fairly dry month for much of the UK? (Or am I thinking of May?).

In my experience April has been pretty reliable to bring a settled spell of some sort. This was only not the case in 2008, 2001 and 1998 that I can remember.

March tends to be considerably wetter and more unsettled whether it be the first half or the second half, this year the second half and May is the most thundery month here going by my records which although doesn't give wet 'spells' as such, can bring high rainfall totals. In recent years however, May has proved to be wet e.g. 2008, 2007, 2006, 2003, 2002 etc.

[Bluebreezer54]

Ive recorded 8.7mm so far this month and 4.5 mm of that fell in one day ( April 3rd ). No rainfall at all since April 8th. Im parched !

[Terminal Moraine]

It's been a dry first half of April here with 12.1mm in the first 15 days but this is not exceptional. There have been 13 Aprils with a drier first half in the last 47 years, the last one of which was 2007 when the first half had only 0.7 mm of rain.

[DiagonalRedLine]

I think if I remember, April 2007 gave me no rain until towards the end of the month where I had a spell of heavy rain, making that April close to becoming a month with no rain at all.