April/May Cool/Cold Spell

[Skullzrulerz]

Good Evening to you all.

 

As the Warm/Hot Spell is ending as we speak or has ended depending on where you are the cool spell slowly taking over the UK with unsettled weather as it main force.

 

Your opinions/thoughts on the spell/period.

 

Please also be respectful of other users opinions as well...

[hillbilly]

The coldest days in May recorded were the 4th and 11th in 1941 at -9.4 deg in Norfolk and somewhere in Scotland!

[Dancerwithwings]

May Snow A trawl through the archives reveals that on 17th May 1955 was probably the most notable May snowfall on record. Much of England and Wales was affected by several hours of snow (Eden 1995), including two to three hours’ worth in the London area (Brazell, 1968).

Coincidentally, the same date twenty years earlier in 1935 also saw England and Wales affected by widespread snow with some places, including theWirral and parts of Devon recording several inches of snow (Eden 1995). Incidentally, on 17th May 1935 snow also fell in the central Netherlands (Zwart 1985) and this is the latest in the season that snow has been observed here.

May 8th 1943 saw snow falling over parts of northern Britain as a depression tracked eastwards across north Wales. The Isle of Man was among the worst hit places and in Douglas 15cms snow lay on the ground by the morning of the 9th (Pritchard 1997?), whilst virtually the whole of Scotland was affected, including falls of 7cms at Duntulm, Isle of Skye (Stirling 1997). Such is the fickleness of May weather that just a few days later temperatures reached 30C in Kent.

Other notable instances of May snowfall include that of mid-May 1923, Scotland’s coldest May of the 20th century and the century’s second coldest May in England and Wales, whilst May 18th 1968 saw snow falling as far south as the Midlands. Meanwhile, a little more recently the Mays of 1979, 1981 and 1982 started with widespread wintry showers whilst May 13th 1993 saw several centimetres of snow settling over the higher ground in central Britain (Pritchard 1997?), including a fall of 30cm at Moor House in County Durham by the 14th (Stirling 1997).

Stepping back into the nineteenth century Eden (1995) and Stirling (997) report widespread snow England between the 16th and 18th May 1891. Snow fell to depths of several inches in some places, including falls measured at 15cms deep in parts of the Midlands and East Anglia. A few days earlier on the 10th snow had fallen as far south as Bath and London (Stirling 1997).

Meanwhile, Gordon Manley, writing in Weather in 1975 tells of snowfall in southern Britain on 22nd May 1867 and 27th May 1821 whilst Brazell (1968) mentions snow as having fallen in or close to the London area on 12th May 1816, ‘the year without a summer’.

Moving into the eighteenth and late seventeenth centuries Manley (1975) raises the possibility of snow being observed on parts of the higher ground in Sussex on 12th June 1791. Early May snowfall was recorded in parts of the London area in 1770 whilst in 1698 a widespread deep snow was reported all over England on 3rd May (Brazell 1968).

 

http://www.dandantheweatherman.com/Bereklauw/latesnow.html

[MP-R]

Chilly weather isn't so uncommon in May, spells in more recent times that stand out at this location with suppressed maxima and/or minima go as follows:

 

2013 - 11th-15th, 23rd and 28th (maximum of 10.9C on the 28th!)

2012 - 03rd-07th (maximum of 09.0C on the 04th and minimum of 02.4C on the 06th)

2010 - 07th-14th (maximum of 08.9C on the 08th and minimum of 02.1C on the 04th albeit not within this spell)

2005 - 08th-15th (no extraordinary maxima but minimum of 01.2C on the 11th)

2001 - 02nd-07th (maximum of 10.0C on the 02nd and minimum of 00.7C on the 06th)

 

Although not typical of May, I'm quite looking forward to any potential unstable northerly as there could be some brilliant convective opportunities with good visibility and notably cold nights for the record books. Better in early May than the height of summer or last August!