The purpose of this thread is therefore to bump it back up to the top of the list to remind everyone that it does actually exist on this forum.

With that in mind, yesterday was our sunniest day of this year so far with a total of 12.8 hours of sunshine at Edinburgh Gogarbank. With that, more sunshine has now been recorded this month than the 1991-2020 average which means that regardless of what happens during the rest of this month, this month will go down as being sunnier than average so just like last year, our exceptionally sunny spring goes on.

Until now, it had looked as though this month was going to be slightly wetter than average here but with little or no rain forecast between now and the end of the month, that is not likely to be the case after all.

As a result, this year is getting more and more like last year all the time. The only remaining difference is that by this time last year, we had already recorded our first 20+°C maximum of the year whereas that still hasn’t happened here so far this year, but I’m sure that even that will no doubt change before too long.

That surely demonstrates once and for all that the weather at this time of the year barely ever changes from one day to the next regardless of what the actual weather forecasts might be saying, which means that we can't even trust these forecasts all that much any more as we already know what the actual weather is probably going to be like.

For that reason, it's just all become really boring, uninteresting and repetitive now and I fail to see as a result, why anyone can actually still be the least bit interested in our weather in spite of that.

Still, at least I've got the politics to cheer me up - Not!

If it was winter...

It's 'warmer' in Reykjavik and Akureyri as I type this, though they've been having significant late snows recently. 

It's been dry here too, of course, though so far there's not much sign of stress - the grass continues to grow, the trees are in leaf and bloom, the fuschia is bursting with flowers, etc, etc. And the thistles and nettles in the wild part of my garden are just as tall as ever! The only real sign is the cracks which have reappeared across the lawn, especially in the barer parts where my pup churned it up over the soggy winter. This can't last forever, but it shows how much water was stored up during winter not far below the surface. 

TBH I'm enjoying the cooler, fresher feel to things. It's a change to have temperatures around or even below average by day (the 91-20 average being 16 at this time of year here), and I'm sure it won't be too long before the usual heat returns. 

No frosts here since mid January, FWIW. SSTs are 14C in the Thames Estuary, the warmest of anywhere around the UK, and it's kept the nights generally warmer than elsewhere...

https://www.meteociel.fr/observations-meteo/temperature-de-la-mer.php 

Don't panic Fw, i've booked Weds to Fri off this week to get some joinery done in my garden, so you should get some rain from Wednesday...

In the previous house we built a conservatory with double-glazed roof panels - a special glass that kept out some of the UV rays.

Underfloor heating made it a great place to sit in weather like this or indeed in any winter weather. Never reached 40C because of the glazing.

But never got cold either. I've just been to a local nursery down the road where they had a notable late frost last night, even with the winds! I'll be pleased to see the last of this Spring chill.

The end result of this is that more sunshine has already been recorded at Edinburgh Gogarbank this spring than the 1991-2020 average which means that regardless of what happens during the rest of this month, this spring will go down as being sunnier than average.

Sadly though, this month has not continued that trend in any way. As I write, we are now just over two thirds of the way through this month and yet, we still haven't even had a half of our 1991-2020 May average sunshine at Edinburgh Gogarbank. This means that unless we suddenly get a lot of sunshine in the last 10 days of this month (and today once again, starting on a dull note), this is going to end up being a very dull month for the time of year.

Since May is our sunniest month of the year on average according to the 1991-2020 averages, this could have a major impact on whether or not this year ends up being sunnier than average in the end because in order for that to happen, this is when we really need to be getting that sunshine.

In addition to that, this is also not going to bode very well for the coming summer if the sunshine doesn't return here very soon as one of the aspects which make up a decent summer (in my books, at least) is that it should be sunnier than average overall, in addition to being warmer and drier than average.

Lovely spell of sunny warm weather about to arrive in Edinburgh, have you not been looking at the forecast?

Yes I have, but it is important to remember that any forecast is merely a prediction and regardless of how likely that forecast's outcome actually is, there is always at least a very small chance that such a forecast could end up being completely wrong.

What I was highlighting was merely the fact that this could end up being a very dull month if that forecast of warmer and sunnier weather doesn't come off and so, that shouldn't in any way be taken to reflect what I think will actually end up happening, or the fact that I somehow haven't even looked at forecasts which are telling us otherwise.

If anything and given what this time of the year is normally like, I still wouldn't put it past this month to still end up being sunnier than average here in Edinburgh anyway and if you have been following my posts over recent years, I would have expected you to have guessed that this was actually how I was actually thinking despite detailing an outcome which would happen if that didn't come off.

If this month does end up being sunnier than average though, everything will then just become really boring once again as that would send a clear message that every month at this time of the year is always going to be sunnier than average regardless of how that has come about and my overall interest in the weather would just wane even more if that was to happen.

It is after all, the possibility that a certain month even at this time of the year might not be sunnier than average after all which makes it interesting even though it is the sunnier weather which I am usually looking for, and it is therefore these duller months which help us to  appreciate those sunnier months when they happen, rather than just simply taking them for granted as something which is generally always going to happen anyway.

That is one strange comment. Sunnier than average is now boring!! 

I think it is (I like weather that varies, if I didn't I could move to a desert - though it might come to me come August), but it's just a matter of opinion.

Which is exactly what we get in this country. I'd certainly wouldn't find it boring though if we have sunnier than average months - doesn't mean it'll be sunny all the time. We ain't Spain.

No classical UK variation this year. It's either constant heavy rain or semi drought. No snow (well, up here on Dartmoor we did see about 0.5mm of the stuff), no frost (again, we used to see -5C most every winter - not anymore), always mild (no month this year below average, no significantly cold month for years). 'ice days'? What are they? Pleasant  20-22C summers days? A thing of the past. Green summers with no drought worries? Gone. Wet summers when we wondered if we'd be able to even cut the barely? Gone.

Yes, and if I made a similar comment just a few years ago, I would probably fully deserve to be carted off to the nearest psychiatric unit and sectioned under the mental health act as a result.

However, our weather does appear to be becoming sunnier and warmer on average (if anyone can come on here with any evidence which would suggest otherwise, I will be more than happy to see that and then, take that into consideration) with warm and sunny weather now increasingly becoming the norm for here which never used to be the case before.

Our weather used to be renowned for being changeable and more likely to be wet and unsettled but with this ever changing climate, that is increasingly becoming no longer the case any more.

All too often, our weather pattern gets stuck in a rut with the same weather persisting for weeks or sometimes even months at times and all too often, I am able a report a particular day's weather as a result, just by copying and pasting the report from the previous day and when it becomes increasingly like that, any interest in our actual weather just isn't going to be there any more and although the weather can still sometimes be changeable at time as we've seen just recently with that colder and duller weather which we've just had, our weather just isn't as changeable any more as it used to be.

Not true e.g. we had a very wet summer in 2024. Winters are certainly milder but in my location we still get snow every year and in Spring/Summer/Autumn we get warm, cool, wet, dry and on occasions some extremes.

I'm speaking from my experience in Devon, wrt the spring rainfall thread too. I don't doubt your observations from Yorkshire 👍

The UK, like here, has varied weather, but those variations are typically equally as boring as any 'constants'. 

I'd give Dev a month in my location. I guarantee he would never complain about 'sunnier than average' again!