The weather may be uneventful, even boring these days over the UK and Ireland but it’s not everywhere.

Thanks to a strong flexing ridge over Scandinavia, it’s looked and felt like summer with yesterday warming to 25.8C at Lahti, south-central Finland. The average for May is 16C and even for July it’s only 22C. This constitutes Finland’s earliest 25+C for the first half of May.

Even up in Finnish Lapland, temperatures warmed to 24.1C at Salla.

Summer In Scandinavia, Still Winter In SE France

Then came this afternoon and it was even warmer in Finland and downright cold beneath a cut off low spinning over the south of France.

27.1C for Helsinki, Finland was a record for the first half of May. Incidentally the May average high is a mere 14.4C.

Surprisingly, a high of just 9.2C in the city of Nimes in the south of France was indeed the coldest May day since 1926 when the high was just 8.2C. Average high for May is 23C and is considered one of the warmest cities in France.

The south-east interior city of Saint-Étienne observed it’s coldest temperature since 1947 for the 2nd half of May. 6.7C was the high and it’s never been as cold beyond May 10 according to Etienne Kapikian.

Often with northerly blocking highs come lower pressure underneath. Thanks to a cut off low over southern France, temperatures are well below what they should be and that’s not all, the higher valleys of SE France has been plastered by heavy snowfall.

https://twitter.com/Ega7678/status/995574287577894914

https://twitter.com/Meteovilles/status/995703082540466176

https://twitter.com/ThomasBlanchar2/status/995624094535168001

https://twitter.com/MeteoLanguedoc/status/995659224138092545