Showers and grey skies mean April has felt especially chilly, Met Office says

April has been a ‘month of two halves’ with a warm couple of weeks followed by chillier weather and more rain than average, the Met Office said.
April has been wetter but warmer than average so far said the Met Office. (Lucy North/PA)
PA Wire
Rosie Shead27 April 2024

Grey skies and rain mean April has felt unusually cold, the Met Office said.

April has been a “month of two halves”, with a warm fortnight followed by chillier weather – meaning that the average temperature for the month remains above the norm, according to forecasters.

Despite this, a lack of sunshine and persistent rain may have contributed to it feeling colder than expected for springtime, the Met Office has suggested.

Forecasters expect warmer temperatures to return from Wednesday, with south-east England set to enjoy highs of up to around 20C.

So far this month, the maximum temperature recorded was 21.8C in Writtle, Essex, and a low of minus 6.3C in Shap, Cumbria – with a UK-wide average of 8.4C, according to the Met Office.

Data from the forecaster shows that the UK has seen an average of 99mm of rainfall in April so far, which is 27% higher than usual for the month.

Amy Bokota, senior meteorologist at the Met Office, said: “It’s been a month of two halves where it’s been quite warm for the first half, and then quite cool up until now, and then it’s expecting to warm back up again.

“So on the whole, it’ll probably be on the warmer side of average.”

She continued: “It’s definitely wetter than average for the UK as a whole, so there you’re going to be seeing rain and grey skies and a lot of places have been quite dull so far for the time of year.”

When asked why people may feel it’s been colder than expected for springtime, despite temperatures suggesting otherwise, Ms Bokota replied: “The last couple of weeks has just been quite cooler than average.

“It’s been quite a dull month – duller than it should be on average – so there’s been less sunshine around, so that kind of impacts what people feel with the weather as well.

“It’s been mainly unsettled and changeable, so I think that just sort of feeds into people’s interpretation of what the weather feels like.”

The meteorologist said that although the forecast next week is looking warmer from Wednesday, it might not be the “glorious heatwave” people are hoping for ahead of the May bank holiday weekend.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in