Spring 2023 - Moans, Ramps & Chat

[baddie]

This year has been so weird weather wise

Janaury has been very sunny, temps and rainfall near average

February has been exceptionally dry, above average sunshine, and more like an average March than February

March has been seen a dry, dull and cold start, then snow, then several weeks of rain with milder temps. It has felt so much like November rather than March, sunshine and rainfall wise

April has been better, but could have been even more better. April 2023 was like the duplicate of March 2022 for temperature and sunshine, however it was wetter

May so far has been decent with sunshine and reasonable temps but will be ruined by rainfall

[Guest]

Not often I say this but February has been by far the most useful and usable month of the year so far. Played golf almost every weekend. Absolute dross going forward. 

[Don]

7 hours ago, B87 said:

I posted last week that the first 21 days of May 2012 were cooler than the average April. The final 10 days averaged 25.6c! If that happened, and continued through June, it might be appropriate compensation for the spring so far.

Yes, I think the final 10 days of May 2012 was probably the best period of weather between May and August that year?!

[SunSean]

2 hours ago, Alderc said:

Absolutely dreadful end to the 12Z ECM. Looks like across GFS and ECM especially  the Azores high will be more of a hindrance being just out of reach and opening the door to the north west and all sorts of misery!! 
 

That chart is as pretty as a meth-heads grin. There is a coldy out there that did a deal with the devil to ensure a year of junk weather for 2023!

[SunSean]

Spot the sun...

Not an upgrade in sight lol.

I'm sorry, but for May, this is so bad it's laughable. We're staring down the barrell of a 3rd May in a row with far below average sunshine if this sh*t comes off.

Mayvember?

[Guest]

Sweepstake on when the next dry, warm and sunny day will be?

I’ll start, May 24th. 
 

Model output even worse this morning! 

Edited May 5, 2023 by Alderc

[mountain shadow]

16 minutes ago, Alderc said:

Sweepstake on when the next dry, warm and sunny day will be?

I’ll start, May 24th. 
 

Model output even worse this morning! 

Sure is awful Alderc.

The worst Spring in many a year.

[In Absence of True Seasons]

10 hours ago, Alderc said:

Absolutely dreadful end to the 12Z ECM. Looks like across GFS and ECM especially  the Azores high will be more of a hindrance being just out of reach and opening the door to the north west and all sorts of misery!! 
 

As I often say, may as well take a holiday to the Baltics this time of year!

The old phrase "it's Baltic in here!" (Aka cold and miserable) should be replaced with "it's British in here!" Lol.

Jokes aside that does look horrific.. basically just Iceland, Greenland the west coast of Norway that are on par or worse lol. 

[In Absence of True Seasons]

1 hour ago, SunSean said:

Spot the sun...

Not an upgrade in sight lol.

I'm sorry, but for May, this is so bad it's laughable. We're staring down the barrell of a 3rd May in a row with far below average sunshine if this sh*t comes off.

Mayvember?

Woaah, that's dire. 

Not just the lack of sun, but those temps. We genuinely may not hit a single 20c until June of this forecast manifests. 

That forecast is the equivalent of getting a solid week in May of temps 20-23c. But of course, that would be too much to ask for. We don't live in Spain people, come on! We live in Reykja- no, sorry, we live in Britain. My mistake.

[In Absence of True Seasons]

The colour of the sky out the train window this morning....good grief. It's so dark!

May? November? A mild December day? Doesn't matter, it's all the same - fifty shades of grey.

Forecast for the Kings Coronation looks, well, just about what you'd expect. Pop another vitamin D tablet and carry on I suppose!

[Nick L]

What an appalling outlook. Will be off to the US for storm chasing in a couple of weeks, can't come soon enough.

[Evening thunder]

Not been a great spring, or March especislly down here especially sunshine wise, but then Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were decent here with plenty of sunshine.  Also I remember that the Easter weekend was Decent.

Forecast isn't great but Tuesday and Wednesday showed cloudy on the apps and turned out mostly sunny, so maybe they are over-estimating cloud on some days going forward.

1 hour ago, In Absence of True Seasons said:

As I often say, may as well take a holiday to the Baltics this time of year!

The old phrase "it's Baltic in here!" (Aka cold and miserable) should be replaced with "it's British in here!" Lol.

Jokes aside that does look horrific.. basically just Iceland, Greenland the west coast of Norway that are on par or worse lol. 

Well, maybe sometimes, but at the moment they have -10C 850hpa temps and nighttime temps well below freezing

Imagine the moaning in here if we had that in May

Edited May 5, 2023 by Evening thunder

[Summer8906]

On 02/05/2023 at 22:25, Greyhound81 said:

I don't think 2019 and 2020 can be described as poor.  I don't think you can call it a poor summer when temperatures of over 30 degrees are reached in all 3 months.  2019 was really good, from late June right through to the end of the summer (first weekend of June was good though).  Even 2021 was not that bad apart from August.

I will echo @LetItSnow! here. Those two summers were persistently unsettled, I can't see how 2019 can be classed as really good though it depends where you live. I did miss June and the first half of July, but by all accounts most of June was a dull, wet washout and the first half of July dry but cloudy. Then late July was mostly changeable apart from that three-day heat spike, and August was persistently unsettled apart from that hot week leading up to, and including, the bank holiday.

2020 really was downright poor. Aside from about 4 days in June, 2 days at the end of July and one week in August, it was constantly cloudy, often damp or wet, and August from the 14th onwards was terrible, at least as bad as August 2008.

More generally, I would rate a summer month with 25 unsettled days of say 19C max, 15C min (typical of many recent summers) and a 5-day heatwave as poor; reaching 30C alone does not cut it.

By contrast, a summer month with an absolute max of 28, but three weeks of fine sunny weather and temps mostly in the mid-twenties, I would rate as very good. Hence my favouring of summers like 1996 or months such as August 2005.

Edited May 5, 2023 by Summer8906

[Summer8906]

37 minutes ago, Nick L said:

What an appalling outlook. Will be off to the US for storm chasing in a couple of weeks, can't come soon enough.

 

Is the outlook actually that bad? Just looking at GFS 00z and ECM 00z and neither look terrible, not cyclonic after this weekend. The weekend (except, hopefully, Sunday) is grim, yes, but pressure rises next week and particularly end of the week / next weekend.

If I was to describe them in one word, I'd probably use "boring". Very zonal and westerly for May, though pressure is often high in the south suggesting not too much rain and some days of sun.

Appalling for storms, real warmth, interesting weather patterns (weather systems moving in from the east, which can often happen at this time of year) or interesting late cold - it's true.

The whole thing looks rather like a rerun of May 2011 or 2015 - both months noted for very boring westerly-dominated weather, but neither month was that unpleasant.

Is it me or is the "return of the westerlies", traditionally a June thing, happening much earlier these days? May seems to be Atlantic-driven much more often than previously nowadays, with (if the models are correct) possibly the third successive Atlantic-dominated May. And going back slightly further, as well as 2011 and 2015 as mentioned above, 2014 was a mostly cyclonic Atlantic-dominated month, aside from a short hot spell.

 

Edited May 5, 2023 by Summer8906

[Summer8906]

2 hours ago, SunSean said:

Spot the sun...

Not an upgrade in sight lol.

I'm sorry, but for May, this is so bad it's laughable. We're staring down the barrell of a 3rd May in a row with far below average sunshine if this sh*t comes off.

Mayvember?

That forecast does look very much worse than what the ECM and GFS 00z are suggesting, which is a significant improvement for the middle and end of next week. Met Office model forecast doesn't go out that far, but I presume it's something much more cyclonic than the other 2 models.

I hope that the forecast above does not come off as it looks like a rerun of 2021.

[Nick L]

13 minutes ago, Summer8906 said:

 

Is the outlook actually that bad? Just looking at GFS 00z and ECM 00z and neither look terrible, not cyclonic after this weekend. The weekend (except, hopefully, Sunday) is grim, yes, but pressure rises next week and particularly end of the week / next weekend.

If I was to describe them in one word, I'd probably use "boring". Very zonal and westerly for May, though pressure is often high in the south suggesting not too much rain and some days of sun.

Appalling for storms, real warmth, interesting weather patterns (weather systems moving in from the east, which can often happen at this time of year) or interesting late cold - it's true.

The whole thing looks rather like a rerun of May 2011 or 2015 - both months noted for very boring westerly-dominated weather, but neither month was that unpleasant.

Is it me or is the "return of the westerlies", traditionally a June thing, happening much earlier these days? May seems to be Atlantic-driven much more often than previously nowadays, with (if the models are correct) possibly the third successive Atlantic-dominated May. And going back slightly further, as well as 2011 and 2015 as mentioned above, 2014 was a mostly cyclonic Atlantic-dominated month, aside from a short hot spell.

 

The EC has 30-50mm widely across Britain for the next 10 days, that's poor in my book. There are 2 days in the entire run where the weather is reliably dry (plenty of days of sunshine and heavy showers, but you can't exactly plan outdoor activities with that sort of forecast), and even then the temperatures are distinctly average.

Edited May 5, 2023 by Nick L

[Summer8906]

9 minutes ago, Nick L said:

The EC has 30-50mm widely across Britain for the next 10 days, that's poor in my book. There are 2 days in the entire run where the weather is reliably dry, and even then the temperatures are distinctly average.

I am surprised at that looking at the pressure patterns. After the middle of next week, for the south of England, where is this rain coming from?

I would expect the south to be pretty much completely dry from next Thursday onwards, looking at how high the pressure is. Not necessarily sunny, but dry.

The north and in particular Scotland does look unseasonably poor though.

I'd say it's very likely that nowhere will exceed 20C though, and if the same zonal pattern sticks late in the month, could we be in with a chance of a May where 20C is not exceeded?

 

Edited May 5, 2023 by Summer8906

[SunSean]

14 minutes ago, Summer8906 said:

That forecast does look very much worse than what the ECM and GFS 00z are suggesting, which is a significant improvement for the middle and end of next week. Met Office model forecast doesn't go out that far, but I presume it's something much more cyclonic than the other 2 models.

I hope that the forecast above does not come off as it looks like a rerun of 2021.

Yeah I didn't think that I would see another May as bad as 2021 but here we are, staring down the barrell of a May, so bad, that we'd be begging for another May 2021!

[Summer8906]

18 minutes ago, SunSean said:

Yeah I didn't think that I would see another May as bad as 2021 but here we are, staring down the barrell of a May, so bad, that we'd be begging for another May 2021!

As I said I remain unconvinced it will be, looking at today's models. Pressure is often high in the south from middle of next week. The models aren't showing anything like as cyclonic as May 2021, or indeed March just gone.

I might be wrong but I hope not! And I'm often one of the first to moan on here at bad model runs

Also the Met Office 14-day isn't terrible:

"From midweek, high pressure looks to probably build to the west of the UK, with many areas left in a showery northwesterly airstream. The best of the drier and indeed warmest weather will likely be further west. A small chance that low pressure may develop to the east of the UK, pushing some rain westwards into eastern counties. With time, the ridge of high pressure to the west may extend further east, meaning more areas see drier conditions. Often on the breezy side to start with and rather cool on windward coasts, but winds easing for most with time."

Edited May 5, 2023 by Summer8906

[Summer8906]

2 hours ago, Alderc said:

Sweepstake on when the next dry, warm and sunny day will be?

I’ll start, May 24th. 
 

Model output even worse this morning! 

I'll be more optimistic and go May 12th, but by "warm" I mean "average for mid-May".

That said, I will get a moan in. The weather today is absolutely appalling. Dull, damp and stiflingly humid. And I can't believe how appalling the forecast for this weekend is, perhaps the worst BH weekend since.... um.... June 2012. The weather gods are clearly not royalists.

Edited May 5, 2023 by Summer8906

[Summer8906]

52 minutes ago, Evening thunder said:

Not been a great spring, or March especislly down here especially sunshine wise, but then Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were decent here with plenty of sunshine.  Also I remember that the Easter weekend was Decent.

Forecast isn't great but Tuesday and Wednesday showed cloudy on the apps and turned out mostly sunny, so maybe they are over-estimating cloud on some days going forward.

Well, maybe sometimes, but at the moment they have -10C 850hpa temps and nighttime temps well below freezing

Imagine the moaning in here if we had that in May

Sounds preferable to what we have today, tomorrow or Monday, that's for sure.

Give me a cold high (which due to sunshine would doubtless produce reasonable temps by day) over this stiflingly-humid damp gloom that we're having to put up with for the next 3 or 4 days.

Or, put it this way, and controversially, give me the May Day bank holiday weekend of 1996 over what we have for this weekend.

Edited May 5, 2023 by Summer8906

[In Absence of True Seasons]

1 hour ago, Evening thunder said:

Well, maybe sometimes, but at the moment they have -10C 850hpa temps and nighttime temps well below freezing

Imagine the moaning in here if we had that in May

Admittedly its pretty chilly out there today and tomorrow, but the overall outlook looks good for both Riga and Vilnius (perhaps its different in other parts of the countries)? Solid days-back-to-back of sunshine, heading well into the teens and upper teens by beginning of next week. Tallinn is similar albeit a tad cooler.

Cold at night yes, but I'd happily take 17-19c daytime temps with sun atm. So far this year In London / SE, I can count days like that on one hand. 

The point is that the region is the Baltics, literally renowned for being brisk, yet even they regularly have warmer (and certainly sunnier!) daytime weather than we do here in Britain. I don't really give two-hoots about night-time temps, because it's, well, night. I'd happily have 1 or zero degrees at night if that also meant sunny and 18c during the day....

[Frigid]

45 minutes ago, SunSean said:

Yeah I didn't think that I would see another May as bad as 2021 but here we are, staring down the barrell of a May, so bad, that we'd be begging for another May 2021!

Start of May 2021 was freezing cold, recall a couple days in single digits. Think the CET up to the 10th was around 7C. This time around it's a lot milder in the upper teens. So far this month reminds me of May 2022 which was quite dull and mild. 

[In Absence of True Seasons]

42 minutes ago, Summer8906 said:

I can't believe how appalling the forecast for this weekend is

I can actually believe it, because it's very typical of this country. 9/10 times whenever there is some sort of national 'event' in summer or near to summer, the weather is dross. Like clockwork.

I was gobsmacked by the fact that the Jubilee bank holiday last year in June actually managed some sun (not the whole day of course - it got cool and rainy by late afternoon). A very rare outlier, and indicative of how great a year 2022 was for sun and warmth overall. 

But 2023 is back to the reality of Britain - a climate with a dark, trolling sense of humour. 

[Penrith Snow]

Returning to the UK next week after 3 months in Southern Spain and what awaits me? Truly dreadful weather, May is usually good in the Lake District but the Iberia High has become semi permanent tilting the jet stream into Northern Europe

Great Britain, the land of Brexit, Bartletts and Bad Summers!  

Depressing

Andy