Early May 1995: 20+c Then A Week Later, Wintry Showers

[Weather-history]

Not quite as spectacular as what was going to happen 2 years later but early May 1995 saw a heatwave one day and then a week later, wintry showers.

On the 5th and 6th May, the heatwave reached its peak with maxima as high as 28.6C at Cheltenham

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/archive/ra/1995/Rrea00219950505.gif

Typically as approached the Bank Holiday Monday which was VE Day that year to celebrate the 50th annversary of the end of the war in Europe, the weather became cooler.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/archive/ra/1995/Rrea00219950508.gif

By the end of that week, it became even colder with night frosts and some places even reporting snow.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/archive/ra/1995/Rrea00219950512.gif

[carinthian]

Yes Mr Data, I remember playing Monday Night cricket in Great Driffield, East Riding. 3 sweaters and by the 20th over , snow falling !

[cheeky_monkey]

nothing to compare with Edmonton mid May 2010...31C on Wednesday two days later on Friday it was -2c and snowing.

[damianslaw]

Mid May 95 brought very similiar conditions to what we have been experiencing so far this month and what we are also about to experience this Mid May i.e. very chilly showery conditions.

It was a major switcharound in the space of a week from mid-late 20 highs to high single digit/low teen figures and night frosts.

I remember the 17th May being a very cold bleak day with heavy sleet here as a low pressure system became slow moving across the country.

I think conditions improved markedly during the latter part of the month in terms of warmth but it stayed quite unsettled. The first half of June 95 was very cool indeed and cloudy but then we saw a 2 month heatwave with drought conditions and wall to wall sunshine on many days - a cracking summer.

[Thundery wintry showers]

Indeed. I recall that the Tyne and Wear area fully experienced that heatwave early in the month thanks to a south to south-westerly airstream helping to fend off the sea breezes and it got to 24-25C across the region on the 4th. After the breakdown on the 6th/7th I remember a spell dominated by sunshine and showers from the 8th-19th, but a weak front brought a longer spell of rain on the afternoon of the 14th and it was grey and raw on the 17th due to that southerly tracking depression (with sleet/snow locally to low levels inland). There were also sleety showers about in the North East on the 11th/12th, with some sleet mixed with rain showers at Cleadon late on the 11th. The anticyclone around the 20th-23rd turned out to be quite a cloudy one, followed by a return to the theme of sunshine and showers, with warmer southerly or south-westerly winds- I think some parts also had a thundery outbreak on the 24th.

[Weather-history]

Here are the forecasts from this month.

A foehn effect in the Moray Firth produced temperatures of 22C on 1st May 1995

2nd May 1995

3rd May 1995: parts of the UK were warmer than the vast majority of Europe

[Weather-history]

4th May 1995: 27.4C at RAF Northolt

[Weather-history]

6th May 1995

7th May 1995

[Weather-history]

9th May 1995: sign of things to come, John Kettley says needed rain is on the way, which indicates how dry it has become, a feature of the coming summer.

[Weather-history]

10th May 1995

[Weather-history]

11th May 1995

13th May 1995: a chilly day in some parts

[Weather-history]

14th May 1995

15th May 1995

[Weather-history]

16th May 1995

17th May 1995

17th May 1995: very chilly in parts

[damianslaw]

Good to see all the bbc forecast footage from this period, a time I remember very well. My memory has played tricks though, the 17th didn't look as if it brought much precipitation to these parts, but I can vividly remember experiencing a lengthy spell of cold rain with sleet mixed in, it might have been earlier in the morning, and the 16th was too mild for sleet... alas it was a cold miserable day.

[Thundery wintry showers]

Unusually, it looks as if Tyneside was a particularly good area for picking up a lot of my favourite weather types that month. My recollections of sunshine and showers and potent convection (except for the dull wet interlude 16th/17th) are backed up by the forecasts, but further south there would appear to have been a fair amount of dull dry weather and the odd bit of light rain.

I notice that although they mentioned wintry showers in northern Scotland at times, they didn't make much of wintry potential further south (I'm pretty sure that sleet and wet snow fell on low ground from the Midlands northwards on the 11th, 12th and possibly 13th).

Statistically the south and southeast were sunniest and warmest relative to normal for May 1995 as a whole- presumably this arose from the more traditional NW-SE split associated with S and SW winds during the last third of the month, as I doubt that they were sunniest relative to normal between the 9th and 18th with those fronts hovering around.

[Weather-history]

18th May 1995

[Weather-history]

19th May 1995

20th May 1995

22nd May 1995

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23rd May 1995

24th May 1995

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25th May 1995

26th May 1995

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27th May 1995

28th May 1995

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29th May 1995

30th May 1995

31st May 1995

[Weather-history]

1st June 1995: John Kettley looks back at spring 1995