It doesn't look overly warm - pleasant in the sunshine and chilly of a night?

 

Warm wasnt the reason... Im looking for Dry.

Anything dry.  (as he looks out the window and its torrential rain... again)

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Warm wasnt the reason... Im looking for Dry.

Anything dry.  (as he looks out the window and its torrential rain... again)

Oh, it wasn't a criticism, Russ! I'm not fussed whether it is warm or cool at this time of year. It was just an observation/question (with one eye slightly looking toward my monthly CET guess..)

 

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Out to t+240 and the evolution is clear as mud...

0z ECM places the high to the NW with a low over the France/Belgium/Germany border, bringing NE'ly winds and a reverse of the norm (so the NW best; SE worst)

6z GFS retrogresses the high to the south of Greenland, with low pressure to our N bringing a chilly flow and further unsettled weather from the NW (it does, later in the run, build the high over Scotland)

0z GEM has the high to the SW, with settled conditions away from Scotland/NE England

 

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Looks like 3-4 days from late Wednesday/Thursday of decent weather with HP then turning quite cold but the promise of continued reasonably dry conditions. Looking for some warmth now for the end of the month and start of May or the wildlife, particularly early nesting birds will be suffering.

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Looks like 3-4 days from late Wednesday/Thursday of decent weather with HP then turning quite cold but the promise of continued reasonably dry conditions. Looking for some warmth now for the end of the month and start of May or the wildlife, particularly early nesting birds will be suffering.

Can't wait for the first sight of bikini sunbathers in the park. You know Summer has arrived then

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Can't wait for the first sight of bikini sunbathers in the park. You know Summer has arrived then

"Tit Monday"

 

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Looks like 3-4 days from late Wednesday/Thursday of decent weather with HP then turning quite cold but the promise of continued reasonably dry conditions. Looking for some warmth now for the end of the month and start of May or the wildlife, particularly early nesting birds will be suffering.

Even the temps at the cooler end of the MO spectrum aren't anything to cause problems for wildlife at this time of year. 

Share your desire for some dry, though!

 

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Looks like 3-4 days from late Wednesday/Thursday of decent weather with HP then turning quite cold but the promise of continued reasonably dry conditions. Looking for some warmth now for the end of the month and start of May or the wildlife, particularly early nesting birds will be suffering.

Looking for warmth? We're about 4C above the April mean!

Admittedly the real anomaly has been overnight temperatures but even daytime has been well above average.  It does look like we'll be near average over the next couple of weeks after the end of week mild spell, so there is a chance that the second half of April will be cooler than the first half 

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Looking for warmth? We're about 4C above the April mean!

Indeed - it's been a very warm start to the month, with temperatures effortlessly in the mid to high teens down here by day, and not falling much at night. (Tonight will be the first cold night in a long time).

It's also a hell of a lot warmer than it used to be: the 61-90 April average max for Brogdale - the nearest official station to me - is 11.95C, the 91-20 average max is 14.17 - and here, at least, the average max so far is 16.7! Ridiculous, frankly, and I think people (meaning no offence) have forgotten what our weather should be like.

(As a kid in the 90s, I remember the excitement at reaching 16 for the first time, or 61 in old money - it usually happened in April, but seldom for very long).

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Looking for warmth? We're about 4C above the April mean!

Admittedly the real anomaly has been overnight temperatures but even daytime has been well above average.  It does look like we'll be near average over the next couple of weeks after the end of week mild spell, so there is a chance that the second half of April will be cooler than the first half 

It's been far from warm, or even mild, for most of the time over the past couple of weeks where I live.

On Friday just passed the screen behind the steering wheel in my car (I have a Seat Leon which was new in 2015) said the temperature at lunchtime that day was only 3.5C, and no wonder as it felt positively baltic here with a strong NE wind. There have been numerous other days in the past fortnight when the maximum temperature wasn not that much, if at all, higher. That is way below average for the middle of a day in the first week of April, even in Scotland.

I think much of the warmth seen recently has been mostly confined to southern areas, as precious little of it has made its way up here. It is supposed to be somewhat warmer up here towards the end of the week, but it doesn't look like lasting long if the forecast proved to be right.

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Looking for warmth? We're about 4C above the April mean!

I think we are a little below the April mean here with very little in the Way of warmth (or dry weather). On the plus side Thursday and Friday both look decent enough and pleasantly warm. I would settle for warm or dry but the latter is definitely more needed.

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WX temp chart shows only a small patch of freezing weather over N Russia, but a cool lobe extending quite a long way south from this; in week 1 over NW Europe but in week 2 further east displacing the very warm weather near the Urals (see snowmelt problem in 'Unusual weather' thread). For Britain, on the edge of the cooler weather in week 1, temps at first near norm, but a hint that some milder weather from Spain will approach the south in week 2.

GFS Op - winds going round to a brisk SW-ly under the direction of 1030mb HP over France, declining after Sat 13th as LP runs SE-wards over the Northern Isles and into the N Sea with brief N-lies to follow. By Wed 17th HP has re-asserted itself and becomes centred over Britain 1025mb, only to give way to a shallow LP from the north 1005mb Tue 23rd covering Britain, followed by a weak pressure rise.

ECM - similar to GFS though the LP Sat 13th promotes a deeper trough over Britain as it passes by. The last frame (Sat 20th) suggests that the HP may give way to a milder LP from the west, not north.

GEFS - Quite generally mild/very mild to Sun 14th, when a sudden drop to cool with very good ens agreement, followed by a few days a little below norm with moderate agreement, and from Fri 19th mean stays near norm amidst increasing disagreement (op & control cool later on). Very little rain in the S, not much more in the north after a a wet couple of days around the 14th, also bits and pieces cropping up in far NW.

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I think we are a little below the April mean here with very little in the Way of warmth (or dry weather). On the plus side Thursday and Friday both look decent enough and pleasantly warm. I would settle for warm or dry but the latter is definitely more needed.

Apologies for the NIMBY post. I was referring to Fairweather's area (South Essex) along with the CET. Of course, further north I realise that it has been much colder and particularly miserable in eastern Scotland 

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Apologies for the NIMBY post. I was referring to Fairweather's area (South Essex) along with the CET. Of course, further north I realise that it has been much colder and particularly miserable in eastern Scotland 

Likewise - my post about how warm it's been relates to down here (again, replying to Fairweather's mention of how cold it's been). While acknowledging how cold it's been in much of Scotland (they pinched our easterlies! 😉), I do wonder how much moaning would ensue if we had even an average spring month for once down here, let alone a cold one!

...and the wildlife certainly isn't suffering down here. At least 2 pairs of pigeons are nesting in the old plum tree in my garden, and when I was mowing the lawn earlier the garden was buzzing with bees, hoverflies, normal flies and a few butterflies. It's been so warm, in fact, that everything seems ahead of itself!

 

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Apologies for the NIMBY post. I was referring to Fairweather's area (South Essex) along with the CET. Of course, further north I realise that it has been much colder and particularly miserable in eastern Scotland 

No apologies needed and you are quite right to highlight the warmth. 

Slightly off-topic, but I wonder how much the SWW(s) have caused this spring’s unsettled conditions (southerly tracking low pressure). Hopefully there are tentative signs that this pattern may be ending or at least easing.

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Slightly off-topic, but I wonder how much the SWW(s) have caused this spring’s unsettled conditions (southerly tracking low pressure). Hopefully there are tentative signs that this pattern may be ending or at least easing.

Hmm... IIRC we'd been having those southerly-tracking lows since last autumn, a long time before the SSWs happened. It's why it's been the stormiest winter for many years down here and is why it's been so wet.

It could be that the recent prolonged SSW has prolonged the pattern beyond its natural ending, but we'll never know for sure! What I do know is that zonal winds at 10hPa/60N rebounded and are, for the first time in months, a fair bit stronger than normal. The "final warming" will be a fortnight late this year which, in theory, means the "European monsoon" would be pushed back further into June than normal... but who knows these days, the old rules no longer seem to apply.

https://charts.ecmwf.int/products/extended-zonal-mean-zonal-wind?area=nh&base_time=202404090000 

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Hmm... IIRC we'd been having those southerly-tracking lows since last autumn, a long time before the SSWs happened. It's why it's been the stormiest winter for many years down here and is why it's been so wet.

It could be that the recent prolonged SSW has prolonged the pattern beyond its natural ending, but we'll never know for sure! What I do know is that zonal winds at 10hPa/60N rebounded and are, for the first time in months, a fair bit stronger than normal. The "final warming" will be a fortnight late this year which, in theory, means the "European monsoon" would be pushed back further into June than normal... but who knows these days, the old rules no longer seem to apply.

https://charts.ecmwf.int/products/extended-zonal-mean-zonal-wind?area=nh&base_time=202404090000 

Yes, you’re probably right, perhaps it just exacerbated the issue.

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Hmm... IIRC we'd been having those southerly-tracking lows since last autumn, a long time before the SSWs happened. It's why it's been the stormiest winter for many years down here and is why it's been so wet.

It could be that the recent prolonged SSW has prolonged the pattern beyond its natural ending, but we'll never know for sure! What I do know is that zonal winds at 10hPa/60N rebounded and are, for the first time in months, a fair bit stronger than normal. The "final warming" will be a fortnight late this year which, in theory, means the "European monsoon" would be pushed back further into June than normal... but who knows these days, the old rules no longer seem to apply.

https://charts.ecmwf.int/products/extended-zonal-mean-zonal-wind?area=nh&base_time=202404090000 

I sometimes think that broader scale weather patterns become locked in their own momentum. 

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Well the GFS Ops 6z shows a rare thing these days. An anticyclone which moves steadily west to east across the UK next week before declining and moving into the continent. If it pans out it will allow for the classic gradual transition from cool/cold to mild/warm then back to cool/cold. 

I'll believe it when it is much closer in the timeframe ..... 

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Well the GFS Ops 6z shows a rare thing these days. An anticyclone which moves steadily west to east across the UK next week before declining and moving into the continent. If it pans out it will allow for the classic gradual transition from cool/cold to mild/warm then back to cool/cold. 

I'll believe it when it is much closer in the timeframe ..... 

Perhaps won't happen at all or if does will be not enough recovery to restore to normal state which require severeal months so not possible anymre with the stupid global warming making UK climate more colder, wetter and duller than average.