Onwards...

In the short term, an interesting contrast between MetO and Arpege; the former keeps today's/ tonight's rain stuck over Dorset (reports of flooding to be expected?) as it pivots there - Arpege moves it steadily up-channel.

Further ahead

16-dayer still showing cool weather for all of NW Europe for next two weeks and unlike yesterday the rain is back, week 1 all except Scotland, week 2 mostly in S England.

Jetstream - currently looping S of UK and converting to a steady and quite strong flow across France, just skirting S England,  to Thu 20th when it folds into a new loop, again looping S of the UK,  to Wed 26th after which the loop starts to break up and move E-wards.

GFS - LPs drifting across from the Atlantic, occasionally throwing in one which is deeper (Mon 17th 990 mb N Ireland, Sat 22nd 990mb S Ireland), the latter stalling over UK before a half-promise of warmth and HP from the SW Fri 28th. 

GEFS - temps close to seasonal norm in N, a bit below in S, no real change even up to Fri 28th though as usual the last few days of the period show some variation (but not much)on either side. Rain mostly in a showery pattern throughout, wetter in SW at first, drier in Scotland later.

ECM - much like GFS, some weak ridges of HP between the sring of LPs

The spring monsoon continues. Not the best weather in terms of Covid spread. We need dry air and sunshine

Much of the rainfall looks to be showery in the next fortnight. That will lead to big disparity in rainfall amounts and doubtless the view about how pleasant or unpleasant the weather is. Been largely OK here this week. Not much shower activity and good sunny spells

They seem to be erring towards a write off summer, with perhaps a 35% chance of a few hot spells. Not looking good for 2021 at all.

Hit at least 16C every day for almost a week now and with lot's of sunshine on offer. There have been showers around but thankfully most overnight or early morning. 

Well, we've reached the 50-75mm of rain I didn't expect this month - so you were more right than I was . Will summer be a right off? Too early to say but that the ground is getting wet is a card for the cool summer pack.

Same here, lovely spring days with plenty of sunshine. The odd shower although my lawn remains bone dry. 

So 16c is considered good now for the middle of May in the South is it? And I think the vast majority of the rest of the country has had a lot more than 'the odd shower'

I think comparisons to 2012 are a bit lazy. The detail of the set-ups through April and into May in the two years have fundamental differences to positioning of the blocking. 

Today's GFS 12z does show some promise in the latter stages (from around 300z).

Shades of May 18 about the positioning of the high.

Perhaps so. We were simply reporting the conditions here, which are fairly close to average. Nothing to write home about either way really. Not sure about the “vast majority” - remember that not far off half the UK population live in the SE quadrant. 

Indeed. There has been a signal for improvement around the 27th for a few runs now. Worth keeping an eye on.

Thanks we had almost forgotten. 

Frustratingly the outlook has taken a minor step back from the average conditions to possibly something a little cooler and unsettled. Nothing extreme just not overly welcome after April’s weather.

Some members seem to require the reminders 

Thankfully you are there to fulfil the role. 

Ok fair enough temperatures are close to or a little below average. But I'm still a little bemused at how people can be describing the recent Weather as 'lovely Spring days' it's as if some people are too easily pleased!

And I'm pretty sure it's much less than nearly half the UK population living in the SE more like 1/4

South East quadrant - SE + London + EA = 27 million population!

So you are including EA in this also. I'm not going to bother checking your Maths for this, but UK population is around 70m so that's still a fair bit less than half

So we are getting our April weather in May this year. Does this mean June will be may-like, July like June and August distinctly Julyish?

For the first half of May yes 16C is nice especially with sunshine. But yhe 16C is the lowest maximum it's reached in almost a week, my location saw high teens with other areas in low 20's a few day's back. So nothing spectacular or record breaking but all in all good May weather still.