Official - UK Spring coldest for 51 years!

[RayProudfoot]

As if any of us in the UK needed telling but here is the official confirmation. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22718944

I'll be updating my average temperatures on Saturday but in the meantime here are my stats for spring...

March Mean Temp 3.3C (3.0 below average)
April Mean Temp 8.0C (0.2 below average)
May Mean Temp 10.7C (0.9 below average)

Making my spring 1.4C below the average. That's pretty horrendous.

I'm sure others have suffered worse than that.

[nitrx]

The Netherlands too since 1962

March 2013: 2,5 C , coldest since 1987 ( was 2,3 C)
april 2013: 8,1 C , coldest since 1997 (7,8gr), anyway last march 2012 was also cold with 8,4 C
May 2013: 11,4 or 11,5 C coldest since... 2010 (10,5 C) and 1996 (10,7 gr)

Spring 1962 was 6,4 C
Spring 2013 will be 7,2 C

normal 30 years average (1981-2010) = 9.5 C in De Bilt KNMI

[RayProudfoot]

Ron,

I'm not surprised the Netherlands have suffered like the UK. Most of the weather came from your direction anyway!

The 30 year spring average for this part of the world is 8.7C. For the last few years it has been...

2010 - 9.4C (+0.7C)
2011 - 10.7C (+2.0C)
2012 - 9.6C (+0.9C)

and 2013 will be very close to 7.3C (-1.4C) - remarkably close to your average.

So 3 above-average springs is replaced by 1 really cold one. Summer starts on Saturday but there's no sign of any warmer weather. It's not so much the high temps I want as some sunshine. It's been a grim week.

[nitrx]

Well I think it's coming from the Northwest We haven't had a summerday => 25 C thats exceptional and it seems that this is not expected the nest 14 days anyway the spring had a 'normal ' amount of sunshine hours.

I will make up saturday my station statistics ( I've no template for seasons unfortally, and I go on holiday june 12th to Turkey it's over 30 C (at night about 20 C ) I think it will be very hot

[RayProudfoot]

Well I think it's coming from the Northwest

It's the Russians fault!

We haven't had a summerday => 25 C thats exceptional and it seems that this is not expected the nest 14 days anyway the spring had a 'normal ' amount of sunshine hours.

Highest here was 24.3C on 7 May. Haven't had 30+ since July 2009.

I will make up saturday my station statistics ( I've no template for seasons unfortally, and I go on holiday june 12th to Turkey it's over 30 C (at night about 20 C ) I think it will be very hot

My season average page is manually updated. I can manage 4 times a year. Lucky you going to cheap Turkey. I'm off to Spain in July but the Euro makes everything expensive for UK visitors. But at least it will be hot. Can't wait!

[Super-T]

More likely New Zealands fault. We sucked up all the heat with a long hot summer and autumn drought.

[RayProudfoot]

More likely New Zealand's fault. We sucked up all the heat with a long hot summer and autumn drought.

As we say over here when we have some nice weather... "oooh, we'll pay for that!!". You may well pay for it this winter. Mother Nature does have a way of things evening out. So on that basis we should hit 90F (32c) every day from 1 June to 31 August! But something tells me we'll do well if we hit it once.

Hope you get some rain soon. It's been a lovely day here today although the wind has picked up in the last hour.

[ironeagleuk]

As if any of us in the UK needed telling but here is the official confirmation. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22718944

I'll be updating my average temperatures on Saturday but in the meantime here are my stats for spring...

March Mean Temp 3.3C (3.0 below average)
April Mean Temp 8.0C (0.2 below average)
May Mean Temp 10.7C (0.9 below average)

Making my spring 1.4C below the average. That's pretty horrendous.

I'm sure others have suffered worse than that.

Here's my figures

March Mean Temp = 4.0C (2.9C below average)
April Mean Temp = 7.8C (1.1C below average)
May Mean Temp = 11.4C (0.8C below average)

Making my average 1.6C below the average....slightly more than yours

[sfws]

This may be perdantic, and I am not disagreeing with the coldest conclusion, but I wonder whether all the means quoted in this thread are strictly compatible.

Spring 2013 period.zip

I attach a zipped folder containing:
* a spreadsheet comparing means averaged in a number of ways, but all either using Cumulus integrated average temperature or Cumulus reported minimum and maximum temperatures over various periods.
* a screenshot of the This period output from the Cumulus View menu (the spreadsheet also quotes figures from the This month screen)
* two screen shots of my daily summary output that includes monthly maximum and minimum (one based on the Cumulus daily average and one based on Cumulus daily maximum and minimum).

While I accept that my Fine Offset, despite additional shading, is being skewed high by some sunny periods; the high variability in the figures does demonstrate the perils of quoting averages given that the temperature experienced at least by me and my weather station has been very variable during each day. It would not matter so much if this Spring had consisted of settled weather!

I accept you are probably all consistent in quoting arithmetric means of the monthly means calculated from daily average reported by Cumulus that is itself calculated from integrated 1 minute measurements, but I suspect the 30 year and other averages you compare with are not strictly compatible?

[RayProudfoot]

sfws,

I see your point but whilst the difference between your two calculated averages is 0.6C mine is only 0.2.

I used neither of those two figures directly. Instead I import the contents of dayfile.txt into an Access database and calculate my average using Cumulus's average temperature in the selected period.

This resulted in the same calculation as Steve's Min+Max average.

My source for the average temperatures on my website doesn't explain how they are derived unfortunately but they seem reasonable.

[colinpb]

The following are from the NOAA report. Taken up weather observation fairly recently, looks like I will have to look a little deeper into working out averages.

March 2.7 C (3.6 below average)
April 7.9 C (0.5 below average)
May 10.9 C (0.6 below average)

March 11th had an average daily windchill of -7.1 C !

Colin

[RayProudfoot]

Colin,

That puts your average 1.6 below the norm. Just a bit colder than mine and the same as Richard's in Kent.

On a more encouraging note the next week is looking a lot better.