Does anybody have a link to sunshine records that precede 1929 when the official UK records began? This, according to the MetO has March as being the 9th sunniest on record and April the sunniest on record. I know we've got a long way to go in May but we haven't been without a good share and the outlook is pretty good.

I wonder if we might be on course for a seasonal record.

Again, MetO records have close to 600 hours in two years in England, difficult to tell from the graph but looks like 1990 and 1948. UK values are up there for the earlier date. https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-temperature-rainfall-and-sunshine-time-series

But then May 1975 holds the Scottish record (1975)- this is well above 300 hours alone- but only for some Western parts of Scotland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_weather_records#Sunshine

Then previous to this, there were springs like 1893 that might have more impressive figures. 

Knowledge?

Hello Bert

I think some of the individual Met Office Station Data for monthly totals goes back further such as Southampton for example starting in 1895

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/pub/data/weather/uk/climate/stationdata/southamptondata.txt

You can click on each station (there aren't that many) to see if the data goes back that far

When I did a Summer Index for London based on Kevin's Manchester version I found London Data back to 1900 by month

http://www.london-weather.eu/category.46.html

but there is no Met Office collected data before 1929 AFAIK so you have to hunt around !

Thanks Martin; 682 hours in Southampton looks like a target for the South. That's an average of 7.4 hours a day for the season in 1990.

That station is now closed; so as you say, I'll have to hunt around. Useful link nonetheless.

Looking at the 5km Met Office grid data for monthly sunshine hours 1929-2016, you are dead right that 1990 was the sunniest Spring in that range but the 682 hours is easily beaten

The coastal strip (at least in that year) does way better than just a few miles inland (assuming that there is no tampering with the measurement devices in order to advertise your resort !)

You can see that in the 5 km grid below where the red/orange/purple/black colours are the sunniest

The best was 798.54 hours just south of Chichester at Selsey and the Easting/Northing is shown on the map

The gauntlet from Dew's patch then, I suppose. But of course, with reduced convection along the coastal strip, and less fw Cu building up, the strip does tend to get the best results. The S resorts on the IOW often wear the yellow jersey. I'll monitor closely over the next 2 weeks.

For Southsea (southern part of Portsmouth) there are roughly 1270 potential hours of sunshine available from March-May. On average only 574h are seen - March being the cloudiest and April & May seeing around 50% of the average.

http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/~brugge/Mar2020.html 

http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/~brugge/Apr2020.html 

http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/~brugge/CURR.html 

Manston had 185.7hrs in March and 260.3hrs in April, and 127.9 hrs so far in May.

That makes 573.9 hours with still 17 days to come, assuming data is correct to yesterday.

So to beat 800 hours it would need 13.3 hours every day for the rest of the month.

Of course there are lots of places with blanks on those summaries.

The sunniest spring on record here was 1921 with 621 hours. This season would have been in with a chance of beating it had it not been for the worst ever manifestation of the 'Weekend Curse' ruining it completely.

Weekday average 6.9 hours which would equate to a full season total of 642 hours.

Weekend average of 4.3 hours would equate to a full season total of 400 hours which would be the lowest spring total since 1983. No wonder I am feeling that this is a horrific depressing season that ranks amongst the worst in my lifetime. Worst still it will probably be even lower after yet another awful weekend is over.

1983 was the dullest spring on record here with only 314 hours which works out at a disgusting daily average of 3.4 hours. Yet even that is higher than the 3.2 hours average that Saturday has recorded in Spring 2020. It is just beyond surreal how this could be happening in a season that has seen such sunny weekdays. It defies rational explanation 

The sunniest spots on the south coast in Spring in the Met Office averages data are Bognor Regis, Eastbourne and Shanklin. Hastings is close behind.

Eastbourne has about 560hrs of sun on average in Spring

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-climate-averages/u100y2zh2

Bognor Regis has about 565 hours on average

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-climate-averages/gcp8bswvw

Shanklin has about 575hrs on average

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-climate-averages/gcp0j39m4

For the year as a whole Bognor Regis tops the list

https://www.icenimagazine.co.uk/where-in-the-uk-most-sunshine/

Weatheronline has a climate robot which gives current sunshine totals. It doesn't have data for the above stations. Closest is Herstmonceux where the current Spring total to date is 527hrs

https://www.weatheronline.co.uk/weather/maps/city?FMM=3&FYY=2020&LMM=5&LYY=2020&WMO=03882&CONT=ukuk&REGION=0003&LAND=UK&ART=SOS&R=0&NOREGION=0&LEVEL=162&LANG=en&MOD=tab

That is well behind Manston which is currently standing at about 620hrs. So that could be the station with the highest figure this Spring. Still 13 days to go so it could well top 700 hours.

Shanklin (Isle of Wight) was the sunniest place in the UK in April with 279 hours so beating Manston

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/press-office/news/weather-and-climate/2020/2020-april-stats

Great research. Looking forward to a final report on June 1st

I have a feeling this spring may not beat the single site sunshine record, but will smash the regional (UK, or E&W) ones. It has been unusually sunny inland, with very few days of convective build up. In April the biggest anomalies were in the East Midlands. Today is yet another day of almost wall to wall sunshine.

Also of interest, this Saturday will be both sunny (in the South and Midlands) and very windy (in the North and Scotland) which is perfect for a record of renewable energy around 1pm. My prediction would be 14.5gw of wind and 8gw of solar. If they bother to fire up some of the biomass (say 1.2gw) and assuming nuclear continues to give 5.8gw, that would be over 29gw of low carbon energy. More than total demand. So we will almost certainly take some wind offline, and export 2 or 3 gw to France and Ireland. That's where more battery storage would be useful.

Also, quite unusually, its been a season largely devoid of North Sea clag, usually a common visitor in Spring during the mornings in NE'flows.

Folkestone is the sunniest place on Great Britain:

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-climate-averages/u10fdeb7p

1921 hours.

Shanklin takes the record overall by 2 hours.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-climate-averages/gcp0j39m4

Fascinating. As the crow flies I'm 725 metres from this station. I'm not going to dispute that ! 

record overall ??

Is the Isle Of Wight not part of Great Britain ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Britain

Please see the article lanky. Great Britain is the mainland, the one big island in our archipelago  of thousands of islands, (The British Isles)  of the which the Isle of Wight is one.

I did see it hence my comment

Politically, Great Britain refers to the whole of England, Scotland and Wales in combination, but not Northern Ireland; it includes islands, such as the Isle of Wight, Anglesey, the Isles of Scilly, the Hebrides and the island groups of Orkney and Shetland, that are part of England, Wales, or Scotland.

So I believe there are political and geographical definitions that differ.

This is true WI.  Which one is more important in terms of sunshine records? Who knows? Possibly for the purposes of this discussion, maybe 'British Isles' is more useful. Perhaps we can agree to keep an eye on the general records for the season as it must surely rank up there with the best.

The political/ physical distinction is an interesting topic- the World over, there are places that don't fit both (Hawaii, The Falklands, previously Greenland). But don't get me started on multiple definitions- my crusade about what constitutes the seasons will rear its ugly head again! 

The sunshine records which I have for that station only go back to around 2002 and in that time, the sunniest spring so far at that particular station came in 2015 when a total of 501.7 hours of sunshine was recorded during that particular spring.

During this year, we had a total of 111.5 hours of sunshine during March and 190.7 hours of sunshine during April. During this month so far as at 9pm tonight, a total of 128.3 hours of sunshine has been recorded during this month so far with all of that adding up to a total of 430.5 hours of sunshine altogether for this spring.

That leaves us needing a total of at least 71.3 hours of sunshine during the last 10 days of this month in order for that spring record to be beaten.

That is still technically possible, but highly unlikely especially as the total for this month has only just been keeping up with the 1981-2010 May average there up until now.

I always thought that it was quite simple.

Great Britain, geographically, is the largest island of the British Isles, that just happens to consist of the majority of England, Scotland and Wales. As such it gets used as a shorthand, but Skye, or the Isle of Wight, are not part of Great Britain any more than the Isle of Man is part of the Isle of Skye, but they are part of the British Isles. They can just see Great Britain from their clifftops; it's the next island over after all.

The second largest geographical island of the British Isles is the island of Ireland. It just so happens that that island is politically divided into Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

As such, Northern Ireland is not part of Great Britain geographically speaking, it is part of Ireland.

However, politically, it is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland - to give it its full name - and not the Republic of Ireland.

Now the Channel Islands are not part of the British Isles, nor of the United Kingdom. Far more interesting... blame the Normans

Back to the topic, the unsettled spell seems expected to be relatively short-lived, meaning we can bank perhaps another 80-100 hours before May is out.

I don't have a sunshine recorder, but I can't remember such protracted spells of sunny weather since the second half of March.