The UK in April

 

Mike Hulme on last month’s weather

 

 

DAYTIME TEMPERATURES

April was another rather cool month in the UK, more so in the west of the country than elsewhere.  Strangely, the two warmest days in April were the 1st and 2nd, when daytime temperature reached 13C as a nationwide average.  Thereafter, temperatures rarely managed to exceed the monthly norm.  The southeast of the country was the mildest region during April, Guernsey and Lowestoft both averaging more than 0.5C above usual.  In contrast, Birmingham and Eskdalemuir were both about 1.5C colder than normal.  Three of the last four April’s in the UK have now been colder than the long-term average.  The year to date in the UK has been slightly colder than average, although worldwide temperatures remain well above normal.

 

 

RAINFALL

For the eighth successive month, rainfall in the UK was above the long-term average, during April by about 56 per cent.  Although this was wet, the month was nowhere near as wet as April 1998 or April 2000, when rainfall was more than twice the normal.  In fact, the north of Scotland was drier than normal during April 2001 and Lerwick recorded only 54mm rainfall, 25 per cent drier than average.  England and Wales, however, were wet and this rainfall was distributed fairly evenly throughout the month.  The wettest single day was the 4th.  Much of the midlands were twice as wet as normal and Birmingham, as well as being cold, was also very wet.

 

 

SUNSHINE

Despite the very wet sequence of months the UK has experienced recently, most of these months have been sunnier than normal and April was no exception – just!  Nationwide, sunshine totals were about 3 per cent above average.  The south and north of the country enjoyed most of this extra sunshine, whereas the midlands – Northern Ireland, northern Wales and northern England – were cloudy.  The sunniest day of the month, and of the year so far, was the 20th, when well over 9 hours of sunshine were recorded across the UK.  Although sunshine totals for the month were just above average, the UK has not experienced a really sunny April since 1990.

 

 

Dr Mike Hulme is a Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, at UEA

(more details at website at www.tyndall.ac.uk)

 

 

April 2001: Cool and wet, but dry in Scotland

 

Daytime Temperature: 0.4C below average;          Rainfall:   56% above average;      Sunshine:  3% above average.

 

[all average figures are based on the 1951-80 average]

 

Mean monthly extremes:

 

Warmest          Guernsey                                        13.1C

Sunniest          Tiree                                       195 hours sun

Wettest          Eskdalemuir                          123mm 

Coldest          Lerwick                                             7.6C

Cloudiest          Scarborough                          117 hours sun

Driest           Kinloss                                   33mm