UK Weather - Spring 2020

[Simon Culling]

Saturday produced some thundery showers across south east England, but most places missed them and here in Tiverton we had to be content with a few light showers on what was a breezy day. High pressure has rebuilt from the south over the second half of the weekend and it is now dry and sunny this morning on the Bank Holiday Monday and set fair for the rest of the week over most of the UK. Not so for north west Scotland where weak fronts will give a little rain. it will also become rather warm again for most places after this brief cooler interlude.

The southern half of the UK has had a very dry May so far with one station, RAF Benson reporting no rainfall at all up to the 24th. A few other sites also have low totals below 1mm, including 0.4mm at both RAF Marham + RAF Wittering and 0.8mm at both RAF Wattisham + Shoeburyness - all of these in eastern England. With no rain in prospect until at least next weekend, some sites might get through May with no measurable rainfall. Quite a switch from the winter deluge. Hose pipe bans this summer?

In complete contrast to this, parts of western Scotland had over 150mm of rain between last Thursday and Sunday morning.

[Simon Culling]

The fine and dry weather has persisted over much of England + Wales this week with just patchy rain in parts of Scotland. It has become warm again in the south with the following maximum temperatures:

Monday 25th May - 26.6°C at Teddington Bushy Park
Tuesday 26th May - 26.9°C at Kew Gardens, London
Wednesday 27th May - 26.3°C at London Heathrow

Whilst these are not exceptional temperatures for May, it is the consistency of the sunshine and general warmth that is remarkable - and this applies to much of the current Spring. With dry and sunny weather expected for the rest of the month, it looks like quite a few sites will exceed 300 hours of sunshine for the month.

Dan Holley (of WeatherQuest Ltd) has produced a great map showing the rainfall for May (up to the 26th) which emphasises just how dry it has been over such a wide area. Note how wet it has been in western Scotland, though.

https://twitter.com/danholley_/status/1 ... 0906433538

The CET for May was 12.3°C (+1.2°C) up to the 27th and the EWR was just 10mm up to the 26th which is 15% of the monthly average.

[Simon Culling]

The clear and sunny weather has continued unabated over the UK with unbroken sunshine for most. With the high pressure now situated over Scandinavia, we have a more easterly flow, so the hottest weather has transferred to the west side of the UK and to Scotland + Eire. Highest temperatures for the last few days have been:

Thursday 28th May - 25.6°C at RAF Leuchars (Fire, Scotland)
Friday 29th May - 28.3°C at Cromdale (Highlands)
Saturday 30th May - 27.5°C at Kinlochewe (NW Highlands)

We will see similar temperatures today, Monday and Tuesday before it starts to cool down a bit and there is the possibility of a few showers.

Here in Tiverton we have had wall to wall sunshine for literally the last seven days with just a few cumulus or cirrus clouds and the temperature has been into the low to mid twenties every day. Thankfully, it has cooled down overnight, so sleeping has not been a problem. Everywhere does look notably dry now, with the grass growth slowing to a crawl.

[Simon Culling]

The month and the season ended with another sunny and warm day on Sunday with the highest temperatures again in the west as the easterly drift persisted. The high was 28.0°C at Porthmadog, which is on the west coast of Wales. Kirkwall Airport in the far north of Scotland, had 16.6 hours of sunshine.

The month of May has been the sunniest on record and it looks like we have seen the sunniest Spring in the UK and all four constituent countries since the sunshine records began in 1929. It has also been a very dry month and Spring and the full numbers should be available soon.

The final CET for May was 12.5°C (+1.3°C) and the final EWR was 10mm which is just 15% of the monthly average.

The provisional CET anomaly up to the end of May is +2.00°C which is way above the current annual record anomaly of +1.44°C.

[Simon Culling]

This recent Met Office press release about the weather of both May and Spring 2020 states that May 2020 was the sunniest calendar month on record for the UK with the total of 266 hours which just beat the 265 hours recorded in June 1957. That is all the more impressive bearing in mind that the longest day is still 3 weeks away. Plenty more details in this document, although we should remember that UK wide sunshine statistics only go back to 1929:

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/p ... -may-stats

[Simon Culling]

With regard to the sunshine totals for May, whilst the UK average was 266 hours, individual sites in the southern half of UK had much more than this. The totals for May 2020 were:

339.5 hours at Bournemouth Hurn Airport (175% of the monthly average)
337.0 hours at Shoeburyness (Essex)
331.7 hours at Manston (Kent) (166%)
330.6 hours at Lyneham (167%)
312.3 hours at RAF Valley (NW Wales) (154%)
308.6 hours at London Heathrow (175%)

At the Oxford Radcliffe Observatory, which I think has the longest running sunshine record for the UK (back to 1880), there were 331.7 hours of sunshine in May and this is 173% of their monthly average. They still use a Campbell Stokes sunshine recorder and the total for May 2020 beat the previous record holder of July 1911 by 20 hours.