Spring 2023 - Moans, Ramps & Chat

[danm]

Here are the maximum daytime temperatures at Heathrow for the last 50 days. Can you get more "meh" than this? Sunday was the only day so far where we broke the 20c barrier.

 

Edited May 9, 2023 by danm

[Nick L]

2 minutes ago, al78 said:

Like a semi-permanent October-November with the (very) occasional warm sunny day.

Looks like I will have to tackle my weedy allotment by getting up there any evening or weekend it is not raining. I got another bed cleared this weekend in between periods of rain but it will take the rest of this month at this rate to get it completely cultivated. Planted out brassicas on Sunday and they were starting to get wrecked by slugs on Monday, so am resigning myself to yet another poor harvest this year.

Digging the soil is surprisingly not very demanding (years of applying manure has lightened the soil), it is the digging up of clumps of couch grass and creeping buttercup and trying to smash the claggy boulder of soil off the roots that is very tedious.

We have a similar issue with our allotment. We've got so many things waiting to go in the ground but have had to wait for the cold nights to finish. And even then, most days have had grim weather. An added complication is that we're off to the US for a few weeks on 20th May so we're really going to struggle to get things sorted.

[al78]

19 minutes ago, danm said:

Here are the maximum daytime temperatures at Heathrow for the last 50 days. Can you get more "meh" than this? Sunday was the only day so far where we broke the 20c barrier.

April certainly looks poor and lacking in variability but it matches my perception that the daytime temperatures increased as we went into May.

[B87]

24 minutes ago, danm said:

Here are the maximum daytime temperatures at Heathrow for the last 50 days. Can you get more "meh" than this? Sunday was the only day so far where we broke the 20c barrier.

That was the first time since 29th October that London had seen 20c. Over 6 months ago.

[danm]

2 minutes ago, al78 said:

April certainly looks poor and lacking in variability but it matches my perception that the daytime temperatures increased as we went into May.

Yes it has done that at least. I've edited the screenshot to show it up till yesterday rather than including today, that 14.8c is obviously the high so far today, not the high we will end up seeing. 

[B87]

Just now, danm said:

Yes it has done that at least. I've edited the screenshot to show it up till yesterday rather than including today, that 14.8c is obviously the high so far today, not the high we will end up seeing. 

Heathrow had a high of 15.0c yesterday, I'm not sure why it's showing 19.4c?

[danm]

2 minutes ago, B87 said:

Heathrow had a high of 15.0c yesterday, I'm not sure why it's showing 19.4c?

Where are you getting 15c from?

[Nick L]

2 minutes ago, B87 said:

Heathrow had a high of 15.0c yesterday, I'm not sure why it's showing 19.4c?

The 6th had a max of 14.5C as well, not 17.9C.

Just now, danm said:

Where are you getting 15c from?

Our data feeds at work from the Met Office agree that 15C is the max.

[B87]

Just now, danm said:

Where are you getting 15c from?

[stainesbloke]

Thunderstorm warning across the SE for later today, could be exciting though we certainly don’t need the rain in west London, everything is drenched

[B87]

3 minutes ago, stainesbloke said:

Thunderstorm warning across the SE for later today, could be exciting though we certainly don’t need the rain in west London, everything is drenched

Thunderstorms are good when the air still feels warm during the rain, and you get the petrichor smell. Can't imagine it will be anything other than chilly with these storms.

[TwisterGirl81]

1 hour ago, Sunny76 said:

It will be without any decent amount of Don.

Love a bit of don lol  Have really not had alot of don this spring ha ha  

 

Well another grey day and rain incoming, can we please have some prolonged  sun and warmth, I can only repeat what others have said but this has got to come out as the one of the poorest springs in living memory all round  for south when this season ends surely?!

Edited May 9, 2023 by TwisterGirl81

[Arctic Hare]

Just starting to wonder whether I may go through the whole spring without a 20 °C. Highest so far is 19.5 °C and the outlook right now doesn't exactly give much hope for warm weather. There's never been a spring (in modern times at least) without an official 20 °C in the whole UK as far as I know, but quite possible the mark could be reached in London and not here.

It's not as bad a spring here as 2012 was a summer, if you see what I mean, but it is very very meh and uninspiring. Even mediocre springs usually have the odd period of 3-4 days of reasonably settled weather, yet it's been hard to get more than one dry day in a row this time.

[danm]

27 minutes ago, Nick L said:

The 6th had a max of 14.5C as well, not 17.9C.

Our data feeds at work from the Met Office agree that 15C is the max.

That's interesting. The site I use has synop data, but I'm wondering whether the most recent days on the site are inaccurate and will be updated. 

 

[reef]

5 minutes ago, danm said:

That's interesting. The site I use has synop data, but I'm wondering whether the most recent days on the site are inaccurate and will be updated. 

 

I believe that site uses 1800-1800 as the min-max period and then shifts it to the next day. Leconfield for example has a max of 17.9C showing for the 9th (today), but the actual figure is from 6pm on the 7th?!

[Guest]

Another day, another cloud fest. Looks like we’ll see zero sun for the third time in four days! Beyond depressing! 

[Nick L]

GFS has two days next week where it doesn't even get into double figures here. 

[danm]

2 minutes ago, reef said:

I believe that site uses 1800-1800 as the min-max period and then shifts it to the next day. Leconfield for example has a max of 17.9C showing for the 9th (today), but the actual figure is from 6pm on the 7th?!

You're right, I've been digging into it and the 19.4c it showed in my screenshot for yesterday was from a 6am report showing the maximum temperature for the previous 12 hours, so at 6pm on the 7th it was still 19.4c and it carried that data over.

I've amended the time period now when I generate the report to be at 6am, rather than 11pm as I had done previously (see below):

 

I'm hoping this avoids the overlap. This is what I now get:

@Nick L do the below Heathrow max temperatures now match with your data?

 

[In Absence of True Seasons]

1 hour ago, Azazel said:

When I read the ‘cold rampers’ come in here saying it’s been an average spring/nothing to moan about/it’s perfectly normal - I feel like I’m being gaslit

It's fine to personally prefer cooler/wetter/duller weather, but for many parts of the country it's certainly not been 'average'. Doesn't take a sunshine-seeker to recognise and admit that.

I love warmth and sun (from April to Sept) but I wouldn't claim that having 3 weeks on the trot of 30c weather in England is 'normal' just because I like it lol.

[Nick L]

5 minutes ago, danm said:

You're right, I've been digging into it and the 19.4c it showed in my screenshot for yesterday was from a 6am report showing the maximum temperature for the previous 12 hours, so at 6pm on the 7th it was still 19.4c and it carried that data over.

I've amended the time period now when I generate the report to be at 6am, rather than 11pm as I had done previously (see below):

 

I'm hoping this avoids the overlap. This is what I now get:

@Nick L do the below Heathrow max temperatures now match with your data?

 

Almost, the dates are offset by a day though. e.g. the high for 8th May on that table is actually the high for the 7th.

[In Absence of True Seasons]

1 hour ago, danm said:

2013 had a cold, quite miserable Spring at times, and that July turned out to be a classic. 

Indeed, it's not always a reflection of what's to come later on. But it can be. Theres really no consistency to our climate tbh. 

I recall 2013 because I was at university then, and I remember during the Easter Weekend me and some flatmates took a day trip to Bath and it was snowing lol. 

Shift to June and all that was forgotten...

[danm]

1 minute ago, Nick L said:

Almost, the dates are offset by a day though. e.g. the high for 8th May on that table is actually the high for the 7th.

Arrggh, ofcourse. Will need to find a way to make it align. 

[Methuselah]

Today's BBC Ten Day Trend... It's not very good. 

 

[al78]

One of my job tasks this week is to do a subsidence report for this year using the HadUKP monthly rainfall stats for SE England. Looking at these stats for this region shows what a huge switch there was between the end of winter and spring. In records going back to 1873, February was the 5th driest and March-April combined was the second wettest, only 0.2mm behind 1947 subject to future adjustments to this year's data. Despite being comparable with 1947, there has been little in the way of significant flooding in the SE unlike 1947 when the effects of the rainfall were exasperated by snowmelt.

[In Absence of True Seasons]

11 minutes ago, Nick L said:

GFS has two days next week where it doesn't even get into double figures here. 

When do we start the "Is it colder in England than in Siberia?" game. 

Loved doing that in 2021 when it was 10c and raining in April/May but 24c and sunny in Yakutsk, or 15c in June but 30c over in arctic Russia.