Spring 2023 - Moans, Ramps & Chat

[In Absence of True Seasons]

59 minutes ago, plymsunshine said:

Then we had a lovely mild dry New Year, the mildest on record widespread 15C, sunny

Mad how we can get temps that are a good few degrees warmer during times near our winter solstice, than times closer to our summer solstice (like now - almost May and 9c in London). 

Sums up this island's climate in a nutshell. God-awful. Same dross for 8/9 months+ of the year, just tweak the sunrise and sunset hours.

[Guest]

Cold and raw this morning. Almost no sun, dreadful! 

[Frigid]

8 minutes ago, In Absence of True Seasons said:

Mad how we can get temps that are a good few degrees warmer during times near our winter solstice, than times closer to our summer solstice (like now - almost May and 9c in London). 

Sums up this island's climate in a nutshell. God-awful. Same dross for 8/9 months+ of the year, just tweak the sunrise and sunset hours.

Here it was warmer on the 1st Jan 2022 than the summer solstice the previous year. A stat I'll never fully understand

[Snowy L]

A few breaks in the cloud and we've managed to hit double figures at 10C, making this one of the top 5 days of the Spring so far.

[adrianh]

It's not been overly bad in Sheffield really with regards rain but this murky, nothingness is getting tedious. There's been some sunny days mixed in too but it's often been accompanied by a cold breeze. I think part of it is not wanting to use the heating too much so the house is often cooler than I'd like it to be! 

[SummerShower]

1 hour ago, In Absence of True Seasons said:

Mad how we can get temps that are a good few degrees warmer during times near our winter solstice, than times closer to our summer solstice (like now - almost May and 9c in London). 

Sums up this island's climate in a nutshell. God-awful. Same dross for 8/9 months+ of the year, just tweak the sunrise and sunset hours.

I wouldn't be surprised if December 2015 was warmer on average than this month, taking the country as a whole!!

[Metwatch]

13 hours ago, plymsunshine said:

I fear the SSW may have changed something in the atmosphere with long term effects. Before late February, it was easy for us to gain periods of high pressure centred over the UK, often for long periods at a time. But increasingly now it's looking like any high pressure we are getting is transient and the UK is much more of a magnet for the Atlantic than it was from Sep 2021 - Feb 2023. Too early to say for sure but I believe the SSW has changed the state of the atmosphere in which the UK was prone to the Azores high ridging over or a direct HP centred on it.

Since basically March 1st it has been impossible to get any kind of favourable setup for warmth, and any warmth we have got has just been due to luck (breaks in the cloud/warming by the sun). Hoping this change is less permanent than I think it may be.

I think we would need to wait until June/July time to really see if the atmosphere has sort of changed. Impacts from a late season SSW can have effects up to nearly 90 days after it occurs. 

MJO moving into phases 7-8-1 probably responsible for ongoing blocking episodes and the warmth avoiding us. Perhaps another factor is ENSO and it turning to El Nino soon but have less knowledge on what impacts that gives us here. 

[Sun Chaser]

1 hour ago, Frigid said:

Here it was warmer on the 1st Jan 2022 than the summer solstice the previous year. A stat I'll never fully understand

21st June 2021 was particularly bad. Says a lot about our climate, I'm out of here as soon as I have the means to.

[stainesbloke]

2 hours ago, richie3846 said:

I don't see how there has been a lack of sun this month. Last month was full, but this month, most places are somewhere around average for sunshine. My local weather station has recorded 78% of the average sun, with a few days left. Heathrow 75%, Nottingham 82%, Yeovilton 76%. Realistically unless we have no sun in the next few days at all, then the bulk of England will end up over 90 percent, which is about average. There is no evidence to say it's been the dull cloudfest I'm reading about on this forum. The lack of hot days seems to have seriously skewed perception. 

‘Somewhat around average’ in the UK is quite a low bar regarding amounts of sunshine, though

[Sun Chaser]

25 minutes ago, SummerShower said:

I wouldn't be surprised if December 2015 was warmer on average than this month, taking the country as a whole!!

December 2015 CET: 9.6

April 2023 CET so far: 8.4

Mind you that 9.6 is warmer than a lot of recent good Aprils like 2022 and 2017! Warmer than quite a few Mays as well

[Sunny76]

4 hours ago, Alderc said:

Funny you say that, my partner is in Lithuania currently. She got there Friday just gone had 4days of clear blue skies and temps of 20-22C, it was all finished off yesterday with a two hour severe thunderstorm which for the time of year was apparently very unusual. 

Yeah the in laws in west Latvia said the same. They didn’t get storms, but had 3-4 days of 20-21c with clear blue skies all day long, now it’s back to the 10s and chilly.

Low 20s and blue skies by now shouldn’t be too much to ask for.

[danm]

Personally, for my location, I can't really complain about the summers we've had in recent years (bar most of summer 2021). We've had plenty of warm/hot and sunny weather. Not all the time ofcourse, this is the UK after all. 

This Spring so far is a disappointment, but as I said above, Spring in the UK is notoriously fickle. So it's not entirely unexpected, especially after the late season SSW. So as frustrating as it is, it's just something we have to ride out. 

Early signals for the Summer seem positive, so we just have to hope things align for us to have a good Summer. I'd be far more disappointed if we had a poor Summer than a poor Spring. 

[Azazel]

The thing is - for my neck of the woods anyway - not only is it much colder than I would like, but it’s just SO boring.

Day after day after day of grey and 10-11 degrees. Sometimes it rains a bit. Sometimes the wind is a bit stronger than other days.

We’re not even really getting convection or interesting cloudscapes.

It’s been the worst period of weather relative to the season I can ever recall I think - or at least the most mind-numbingly tedious. 

[richie3846]

3 minutes ago, stainesbloke said:

‘Somewhat around average’ in the UK is quite a low bar regarding amounts of sunshine, though

Yep, that's our climate, average being relatively poor. The country that has more cloud than sun in average.

[Summer8906]

3 hours ago, Snowy L said:

Same story as usual, better off going to Greece for snow in winter and Lapland for sun and warmth in summer. Genuinely hate our climate.

That is no exaggeration - speaking from personal experience.

Parts of northern Greece do indeed seem to get more proper lying snow than the UK (outside Scotland).

[Sunny76]

35 minutes ago, SummerShower said:

I wouldn't be surprised if December 2015 was warmer on average than this month, taking the country as a whole!!

With the El Niño, it wouldn’t surprise me if December 2023 ends up milder than now. 

[*Stormforce~beka*]

2 hours ago, markyo said:

Scattered clouds and warm Spring sun here.....must be a case of the sun shines on the righteous! 

I think it is my sweet! Although it's half popped out now (I say half it's very hazy) and temp gone up to 13c

[Sun Chaser]

3 minutes ago, Summer8906 said:

That is no exaggeration - speaking from personal experience.

Parts of northern Greece do indeed seem to get more proper lying snow than the UK (outside Scotland).

I went to the mountains around Delphi in mid April last year. on the 12th we saw 20cm of snow that stuck despite clear skies. On the 13th drove 10 miles down to the coast and it was 22 degrees! A few days later the weekend saw mid 20s which was beautiful.

[Summer8906]

14 hours ago, plymsunshine said:

I fear the SSW may have changed something in the atmosphere with long term effects. Before late February, it was easy for us to gain periods of high pressure centred over the UK, often for long periods at a time. But increasingly now it's looking like any high pressure we are getting is transient and the UK is much more of a magnet for the Atlantic than it was from Sep 2021 - Feb 2023.

Maybe but Sep 2021-Feb 2023 was by no means constantly dry and anticyclonic. Oct 21 and Dec 21 were pretty wet and had a lot of Atlantic low pressure. Feb 22 the Atlantic of course went into overdrive. March 22 started wet before becoming drier and sunnier. May 22 was unseasonably westerly and somewhat wetter than average. June 22 was fairly changeable. And the entire autumn period, as well as mid-Dec to mid-Jan, was pretty wet, with mid-Oct to end-Nov and mid-Dec to mid-Jan being very wet indeed.

My perception is that it's been unusually unsettled down here in the central south for a long time now, since about June 2019, with spring 2020 and July/Aug 2022 being the exceptions rather than the rule.

 

[Sun Chaser]

Just now, Summer8906 said:

Maybe but Sep 2021-Feb 2023 was by no means constantly dry and anticyclonic. Oct 21 and Dec 21 were pretty wet and had a lot of Atlantic low pressure. Feb 22 the Atlantic of course went into overdrive. March 22 started wet before becoming drier and sunnier. May 22 was unseasonably westerly and somewhat wetter than average. June 22 was fairly changeable. And the entire autumn period, as well as mid-Dec to mid-Jan, was pretty wet, with mid-Oct to end-Nov and mid-Dec to mid-Jan being very wet indeed.

My perception is that it's been unusually unsettled down here in the central south for a long time now, since about June 2019, with spring 2020 and July/Aug 2022 being the exceptions rather than the rule.

 

What I'm saying is that we never really had a zonal spell in those months bar November and second half of Dec 2022 but that was compensated with 6 weeks of high pressure centred on the UK from mid Jan to late Feb. We had westerly periods but never a never ending train of low pressure like in previous years (May 21, most of Aug-Dec 2020, all of Sep 2019 - Mar 2020, etc)

[markyo]

7 minutes ago, *Stormforce~beka* said:

I think it is my sweet! Although it's half popped out now (I say half it's very hazy) and temp gone up to 13c

You must have been especially good this morning then!

[*Stormforce~beka*]

4 minutes ago, markyo said:

You must have been especially good this morning then!

I had my lot it's gone again lol!!

[matt111]

To me it’s the fact we been completely devoid of any properly sunny days that feel pleasant enough to spend time outside. Yes we’ve had sun at times here but it’s never lasted a whole day and every time it’s been a one day wonder before being followed by days of cloud. Yesterday almost managed a whole day of sun but it did cloud over for a short time during the afternoon and of course it didn’t feel that warm with the cold breeze. 

[Atmogenic]

i'm so glad i'm going away for 2 weeks to florida in a few days time, I won't feel one bit of regret going there with our terrible spring we've had and will finally feel proper warmth again after a year from not having it 

[cheeky_monkey]

6 hours ago, In Absence of True Seasons said:

Enjoy it. I often sing praises of North America's climate and this is the perfect example. 

Once Canada is done with winter...it's done, and you can rely on warmth to come.

England on the other hand....well, it's nearly May and 5c when I left my house an hour ago for work

that is incorrect..i have seen snow in every month except August and frost every month bar none