When I was out and about earlier on, it started raining and after a while, I got rather wet and the streets were soaking. After I got home, I could clearly see that it was raining fairly heavily although the rain has been on and off for much of the day.

This evening was then a bit drier but then during tonight, there has been a little bit of rain once again although not to the same extent as what I witnessed earlier on. Yet despite all of that, not a single weather station in my area has recorded any actual rainfall for today and so, the figure for that remains resolutely at 0.0 mm for today which according to that, made today a completely dry day technically speaking.

Yet from what I saw and experienced, there is no way on this Earth that this particular day deserved to go down as being completely "dry" at all three of my local stations.

Of course, I could easily moan about the fact that it was raining. That is what most people would probably do and this the moaning thread after all. However, that is not what I am moaning about here. What I am moaning about is the fact that the readings from these weather stations have just not been representative in any way, of the actual weather which we have experienced and it really P*#SES me off when that happens because if it is raining then to me, there should be some amount of actual recorded rainfall there for me to actually report, other the whole concept of actually measuring rainfall just becomes a complete waste of time in my book.

Furthermore, this also raises the question of just exactly what does it take for a weather station to actually report any recorded rainfall? I am raising that question because I know that there are some members of this forum who actually run their own weather stations and collect their own data from that, so it would be nice to get some answers from these people. Furthermore, I would like to know it is even possible for this day to even go down as being completely "dry" given what I have experienced on this day.

 

 

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No rain in south Edinburgh yesterday John. There were a few spots when i was in the Old Town but not enough to record. A Met Office Station would record "Trace" this may not carry through to the digital figures that you use though. I suspect all 3 of your stations recorded Trace which may be shown as 0.0

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No rain in south Edinburgh yesterday John. There were a few spots when i was in the Old Town but not enough to record. A Met Office Station would record "Trace" this may not carry through to the digital figures that you use though. I suspect all 3 of your stations recorded Trace which may be shown as 0.0

In that case, it would probably be far better if these sites where I got my data from actually showed that as a trace rather than just showing 0.0 which then gives the impression of it being completely dry, even though that wasn't actually the case on this occasion.

This isn't something which I would want to dwell too much on, but that is something which I feel very strongly about because to me, the data from any weather station as reported by any particular source needs to be representative of what the actual weather at that particular station has been like. However, if the data is showing 0.0 when it should be showing "Trace" on whichever site that is being reported, that is not actually the case and that annoys me a great deal.

 

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So despite certain doom mongers writing off all of March at the start of the month, in the end it turned out rather nicely - the second half was dry, sunny and reasonably warm, offsetting the cooler, wetter first half.

Even today wasn’t horrible as the sun did eventually come out. Classic April shower sort of day.

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Let's moan this up to the top again.

Went to the beach last night with a rod and line. John Mason will know what I mean if he reads this.

5C moderate sleety rain and I thought I was the only idiot on the beach.

But no. A couple were swimming at 7pm and told me it was much colder than they thought it would be. 

Insanity or Spartans, the latter I hope.

Nick

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After a blip yesterday it's back to the filthiest, vilest and most depressing rubbish imaginable. Yet another day of mind-numbing grey skies and light rain. Zero sign of frost, snow or convection - the very things that would have been found in abundance in cold Aprils of the past 

Few of the coldest Aprils of the past would have ever been this dire being dominated more by northerly flows or anticyclonic easterlies as opposed to this cyclonic easterly crap which has been the prime feature of so many revolting months of the past 20 years. One of the clear indicators of this change is that in the past the entire east coast would have been just as poor as here. For example in April 1978, Bridlington and Gorleston had even lower mean maxima than Dyce and both locations failed to exceed 10.5C all month whereas Dyce reached 15.2C. This would be unheard of nowadays as under these repellent cyclonic setups those areas are under a SW flow and only Eastern Scotland is subjected to the persistent Easterly crud

1923, 1941 and 2012 may be about the only Aprils on a par with this horror show and even they had more going for them than this utterly tedious and depressing catastrophe 

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The last week has been pretty good around here, and it's all thanks to the easterly wind. There's lots of sunshine about, though my only complaint would be it has felt a bit nippy at times, especially in any wind.

I'd really like a proper warm and summery spell now though.

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The last week has been pretty good around here, and it's all thanks to the easterly wind. There's lots of sunshine about, though my only complaint would be it has felt a bit nippy at times, especially in any wind.

I'd really like a proper warm and summery spell now though.

The only issue which I have with that though, is that I have seen so many occasions in the past where we have had a nice spell of summer-like weather at this time of the year, only for that to then be it for our summer as the actual summer has during that year has then been poor with a lot of rain and cool temperatures.

 

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Yet another garbage weekend of single figure temperature grey filth. It's just unreal - the most loathsome six months of weather I can ever remember and that's saying something after the past decade or so of  abject horror.

Disgusting tedious mild colourless autumn followed by disgusting tedious frostless and snowless winter followed by disgusting tedious weather free easterly horror spring. Never can I recall getting to mid-April without one weekend day having reached even 12C. Certainly hasn't happened in the 14 years I've been keeping records - until now 

I knew April would turn out crap but I could never have imagined it would be this unrelentingly vile. I expected something akin to 1998 or 2000 which would have been miles better than this even though they were diabolical months. At least they produced convection, snow, hail, frosts i.e. things of interest. It's unreal that we can't even get a northerly in April after such a woeful winter. In fact we can't get anything but repulsive wind from the easterly half of the compass delivering an endless diet of unappetising pigswill.

Night after night of mild 4C crud while virtually the entire country has had a string of frosty nights, days nearly 3C below average and constant grey skies with more to come. This is like nothing on earth a cold April would have brought in the past. Life in a weather vaccuum is what this is. It hasn't reached 11C and there's only been one frost giving a pitiful range of only 12C for the month so far - we should should be seeing diurnal ranges higher than that at this time of year 

It's just absolute rot that this horrifically cold April has managed a pathetic low of -1.3C when last years record warm May produced a colder min of -1.5C. Not only that but there hasn't been a colder night in April since 2013 despite the month having a fair bit of cold weather since then. May has in fact produced three colder nights than April has managed over the past five years which just shows what a joke our weather is becoming

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I was wondering whether or not to resurrect this thread since it will soon be time to start the summer moaning thread.

We are after all, well into May now and just a few weeks away from the start of the meteorological summer.

Yet, I have just had to turn up my central heating for a while in order to take away the chill as the temperatures over the last few days have been refusing to rise during the day with the result today now looks like being our third day on a row with just single figures maximum temperatures (the temperature at 12 noon was just a fairly miserable 7°C here in Edinburgh with an easterly wind blowing straight in from off the North Sea and in towards my east facing bedroom and living room windows).

In addition to that, there has been a total of just 15.9 hours of sunshine during this month so far at Edinburgh Gogarbank with nothing at all for today so far as at 12 noon. Even the sunniest day of this month so far brought us only 5.1 hours of sunshine and when you consider that we are now just about a quarter of the way through the sunniest month of the year on average according to the 1981-2010 averages for this area, that is just really abysmal!!

I think that is only through sheer luck that we haven't any completely sunless days so far, but we did get one on the very last day of April which then gave us a taste of what was to come just now, and today is on course at the moment to go down as our first sunless day of this month.

Yet, this hasn't been a partiicularly wet month so far and even today with the worst of the weather so far, the rainfall totals which are being recorded continue to be tediously small.

What all of this adds up is the most boring and uninteresting weather in this part of the world which I have ever experienced. This has been dragging on for a very long time now, and I really a bit fed up with it all now!!

 

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I'm not an expert on Scottish weather but have just returned from a 10 day wildlife/bird watching holiday on Mull and the Highlands. Over on the West I only had one really wet afternoon and the rest of the time it was a mixture of sunshine and cloud, with some light showers. Never that windy really and about 12-16C so not that bad. It turned much colder in the Aviemore region in the last few days with snow becoming extensive on the higher peaks and then some bursts of heavy snow driving down the A9 yesterday morning with the car temp showing zero briefly around 11.00 am in a heavy burst. It was disappointing that in the 10 days there were only a couple of clear nights so astro photography was out of the question really except for one night on Mull. I had been looking forward to seeing some dark skies. Tons of fantastic wildlife though.

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I'm not an expert on Scottish weather but have just returned from a 10 day wildlife/bird watching holiday on Mull and the Highlands. Over on the West I only had one really wet afternoon and the rest of the time it was a mixture of sunshine and cloud, with some light showers. Never that windy really and about 12-16C so not that bad. It turned much colder in the Aviemore region in the last few days with snow becoming extensive on the higher peaks and then some bursts of heavy snow driving down the A9 yesterday morning with the car temp showing zero briefly around 11.00 am in a heavy burst. It was disappointing that in the 10 days there were only a couple of clear nights so astro photography was out of the question really except for one night on Mull. I had been looking forward to seeing some dark skies. Tons of fantastic wildlife though.

Glad you had interesting weather. It usually is in the far north, western,central  and southwestern Scotland. However I try and stay away from Eastern Scotland in April May and June. In those Eastern areas Spring is often cold and dull with no extremes! I've just spent most of Spring in the Lakes so far where its been clear and sunny on most days, tempting me into the hills on most days. Its been chilly at times but strong sunshine has made it bearable. I've had over 20 C on a few days, snow pellets, hail showers and thunderstorms on others. In other words big variations. In the northeast you have that relentless easterly coming off the dank North Sea.

 

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It's just beyond ridiculous. Over the past 10-20 years we have had to endure the worst winters in recorded history, the worst summers in recorded history and the worst autumns in recorded history. Now Spring seems to be gravitating in the same direction with the diabolical offerings of 2014 and 2016 followed by the dismal first half of spring 2018. Now this steaming turd that is the most depressing and soul destroying of the lot

It's just horrific day in day out with write-off stupidly cold and grey crap. We're now in to the second week of May and it's no different to winter. Even in Shetland this would be considered garbage. Just 7C max today and the average max so far is running colder than late December with 26/38 days since the start of April recording below average maxima. It just seems to have been the same deeply unpleasant and mind-numbingly boring dross constantly since October with no extremes or seasonality whatsoever.

Even most of the warmer than average days at the end of April turned vile cold and grey by evening. I cannot ever recall such a dismal year that offered so few fine evenings by this point.

April hit an all time low having absolutely zero wind from the west and May is following suit. This should be the sunniest and best month of the year but it is just repellent and depressing beyond words being stuck indoors all the time. No quality of life whatsoever especially when the weekends have been even more revolting than the weekdays. Apart from the Easter Weekend, which itself was plagued by pointless boring high cloud, there hasn't been one since the start of April when both days have reached double figures

The last sunny Saturday was way back on 23rd March and looks like yet another rank one coming up which will make this the most dismal spring I've experienced.  Just a sick joke and that's spring over for me here as the next weekend I'll be here will be the first one in June (which will likely be the usual overcast crud we get in June). Will be in Lake Garda from the 18th to 25th which should be something to look forward to until you see the utter dross they have been subjected to over there as well. A horrific 10C last Sunday, 14C and wet today and the forecast shows it struggling to reach even 20C with lots of cloud when 23C is the May average.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/forecast/u0pe39tw5#?date=2019-05-08 Horrible

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First moan of the Spring from me. 33 mms if rain so far today and a max of 6.4C in a fresh to strong at times Easterly wind. Rain started around 5pm yesterday and hasn’t stopped since. More rain today than in the whole of a couple of months earlier this this year. I did water the grass a couple of days ago so it is probably my fault!

Very poor weather for early May, if I'm honest. Spells of rain, predominantly cloudy days and very limited brightness, with temperatures barely scraping double figures are not ideal. Still I suppose after two excellent Mays in 2017 and 2018, and a decent one in 2016, a sub-par May was to be expected by now.

Since no real improvement is on the horizon, I might as well get a bit of overtime in at work for now then...

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It's just beyond ridiculous. Over the past 10-20 years we have had to endure the worst winters in recorded history, the worst summers in recorded history and the worst autumns in recorded history. Now Spring seems to be gravitating in the same direction with the diabolical offerings of 2014 and 2016 followed by the dismal first half of spring 2018. Now this steaming turd that is the most depressing and soul destroying of the lot

It's just horrific day in day out with write-off stupidly cold and grey crap. We're now in to the second week of May and it's no different to winter. Even in Shetland this would be considered garbage. Just 7C max today and the average max so far is running colder than late December with 26/38 days since the start of April recording below average maxima. It just seems to have been the same deeply unpleasant and mind-numbingly boring dross constantly since October with no extremes or seasonality whatsoever.

Even most of the warmer than average days at the end of April turned vile cold and grey by evening. I cannot ever recall such a dismal year that offered so few fine evenings by this point.

April hit an all time low having absolutely zero wind from the west and May is following suit. This should be the sunniest and best month of the year but it is just repellent and depressing beyond words being stuck indoors all the time. No quality of life whatsoever especially when the weekends have been even more revolting than the weekdays. Apart from the Easter Weekend, which itself was plagued by pointless boring high cloud, there hasn't been one since the start of April when both days have reached double figures

The last sunny Saturday was way back on 23rd March and looks like yet another rank one coming up which will make this the most dismal spring I've experienced.  Just a sick joke and that's spring over for me here as the next weekend I'll be here will be the first one in June (which will likely be the usual overcast crud we get in June). Will be in Lake Garda from the 18th to 25th which should be something to look forward to until you see the utter dross they have been subjected to over there as well. A horrific 10C last Sunday, 14C and wet today and the forecast shows it struggling to reach even 20C with lots of cloud when 23C is the May average.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/forecast/u0pe39tw5#?date=2019-05-08 Horrible

 

Wow Richard..got to hand it to you..you do a great rant about the weather...you seem very, very unhappy with the climate in your part of the world? Do you believe in climate change? We are f****d basically and worrying about the weather will be the ealst of our worries in the future. We are in central France and the weather is tuliphere too. Much cooler than normal and with lots of wet and cloudy days and incessant wind particularly from the north and east! We only have ourselves to blame for screwing the climate. It's bound to get much, much, much worse! Cheer up!

Top temp here today was 8.8c....currently 6.8c....moderate rain until late morning...followed by misty drizzly conditions for the rest of the day...Colder than Christmas and most of Feb...

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