April is a month which can see every season with temperatures as low as -13C over deep snow cover to summer sunshine and a balmy 27C. The last 10 years alone has seen both the coolest April since 1989 with heavy snow and temperatures down to -12C and we’ve seen the warmest in recorded history.

April temperature anomaly to date.

This April will go down as a drier and likely slightly below normal month. This April will become just the 4th in the last 16 years to fail to reach 21C. April 2012 experienced a maximum of just 19C, the first April to fail to even reach 20C since 1989. The maximum for this month will probably be the 20.3C recorded at Porthmadog, Wales yesterday.

With a strongly negative Arctic Oscillation/North Atlantic Oscillation pattern through April’s final week with snow and temperatures 4-8C below normal, this April could wind up one of the coolest since 1989, nearing the chilly levels of April 2012.

GFS ensemble 5-day mean 500mb heights

Day 1-5

6-10

5-day mean 2m temperature anomalies

Day 1-5

6-10

Snow forecast through next 10 days

How unusual is it for April to end cold and even snowy? Late April 1981 brought blizzard conditions across the Central swathe of the UK with temperatures dipping to -11C at Dalwhinnie.

So What Has May Got In Store?

Given the weakening of El Nino and onset of a La Nina pattern and continuation of a -AO/NAO pattern, I believe we have an average to slightly below average temperature and precipitation from UK east into Germany and up into Scandinavia.

Warmer and wetter than normal over central and eastern Europe. Possibly cooler with slightly above average rainfall from southern England down through France and into Iberia.

Interestingly both CFSv2 and Canadian show an average month temperature wise and below average for Scotland, slightly wetter than average over southern Britain southward.

CFSv2 for May.

Canadian model for May.

I believe ‘cool high pressure’ dominates in the mean across Scotland, possibly most of the UK which means mild days with average daytime maximums but beneath clear skies and cool, dry air by night, it will get chilly with continued threat of rural frost. Low pressure west of Iberia is likely to present an unsettled influence across Southwest Europe.

FEATURED IMAGE (TOP): CREDIT Monica McNally ‏@MonicaMcNally

OFFICIAL SUMMER 2016 FORECAST WILL BE RELEASED MAY 1.

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