2018 was an absolute peach

Tell me about it! - You can tell we the NAO and AO are negative and the zonal winds are in reverse....as you rightly said if only.....

...It was winter! - This is classic retrogression as well.  Waste of an easterly which will provide nothing more than 10-12c end of the week and cloud with drizzle and temepratures struggling to get into double figures along the East coast. - Typical!

I seriously can't help but think of why oh why!? We get such eye candy blocked like pattern set ups for cold and snow when we are approaching May!?

Where were these charts/set ups between November and March?

Oh well - nice to see but just a pity (as is often the case like usual) it will be nothing noteworthly to discuss from a cold and snowy perspective as it's too late in the season for cold and snow and this set up is pretty rubbish from a warm perspective or for warm or hot weather fans as well as it will be too early in the season for an easterly winds to bring us a heatwave! Meh! 

Today's WX summary temps given an upgrade from yesterday with week 1 only well  below norm in Spain and N Russia and in week 2 warmth working in from SW and SE leaving Finland area as the cold patch. Even some springlike stuff across France just abouts affecting SE UK. Band of rain in week 1 from Atlantic across France to Balkans and Belarus, pushing further S to Turkey week 2. Dry for UK week 1, very dry week 2 including much of N Europe. Water shortages threatening?

Jet not doing anything to speak of near UK for next two weeks, main action is over Spain.

GFS op forecast like yesterday for week 1 but changed for week 2. Atlantic LP dives S E to Biscay 1000mb by Fri 22nd with E-lies for UK. It moves N still 1000mb Belgium Mon 25th and then fills. Pressure rise significant over UK by Thu 28th becoming centred Shetland 1035mb Tue 3rd weakening and drifting a little E-wards later allowing SE-lies, but still no LP close by.

GEFS temps near norm - perhaps a little cooler around mid-weeks Wed 27th and Wed 4th (control a v cold outlier at the end with quite a wide spread by then) with bits and pieces of rain in most ens members from time to time. Could well be locally colder on E coast but not showing up on available GEFS locations.

ECM is similar to GFS but suggesting that HP will set up to W of Scotland rather than to N.

Thanks.

Hoping the pressure rise next week materialises and that tempers the effects of the easterly.  Friday to Sunday could be quite grim, and might be really windy in places.

ECM ensembles look cool after 24th. More frosts which is a pain this time of year.

Yeah I don't know why but in my experience May often seems to start cold, seems to be a regular occurrence in recent years.

Can you not make some kind of cloche? Failing that, some gardening fleece should help. It's not going to be a penetrating frost (that's assuming you get one - could be a fair amount of cloud, especially in the East) 

WX summary - a bit of a downgrade today; most of W Europe a little below average week 1, then in week 2 warmth in the far SE (Black Sea) pushes some rather cool stuff across to Scandinavia, Uk, even N Spain. The warm patch shown yesterday over the low countries has disappeared. Week 1 rain from Spain to Alps to Poland, dry either side; week 2 extra rain appearing N of this band in patches for UK & Scandinavia.

Jet not doing much around the UK; strong stream through the Med from May 2nd

GFS op - LP moving SE to Biscay 995mb Sat 23rd with E-lies  as previously well forecast, drifting N and becoming part of an extended trough SW-NE across UK by Tue 26th. Pressure than rises 1030mb Scotland Fri 29th which slowly drifts NW (1065mb ! Greenland Tue 3rd) with N/NE-lies back in the forecast which drive a cold LP centre S to Denmark 995mb Sat 7th. Week 2 looks quite different and colder than yesterday.

GEFS - from Mon 25th mean consistently a little below norm and continual small amounts of rain - but the op (&control) described above are really extreme cold outliers from Tue 3rd so it may never happen. Drier in the far N though Inverness snow row figures back to low teens around the 3rd. 

ECM - like GFS though HP doesn't move quite as far to the NW thus less suggestion of N-lies (though the worst of these shown on GFS are  beyond the ECM time frame)

The only time in my life to date when I can recall seeing falling snow as late as May was in 1995, when we had one or two snow showers one morning during a cold blast from the north. Oddly enough, this was only a week after we had had temps in the low 20s with glorious sunshine for a few days!

My memory goes back a bit further, to 1975, when an inch of lying snow stopped the county cricket match at Buxton and snow showers interrupted even lowland matches. See photo in link.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/jun/01/weatherwatch-freak-snow-stopped-cricket-on-2-june-1975#

My personal experience was of planning an orienteering relay competition at Ladybower near Buxton and putting the final touches to it that weekend. With snow lying on the event site we felt it reasonable to make the courses a bit longer than usual so people could get warm while running. Come the event, the following weekend, temperatures had shot up to 25C and the competitors were saying they were overheating, didn't we know it was summer, and why not keep the courses shorter

There's been a few brief early May northerlies in recent years that have delivered afternoon showers with a wintry element. Winters last hoorah. Climatically its all very normal. 

Agreed - overall quite a dry picture though. What I am  watching for is a switch to much more unsettled weather as sometimes happens later in Spring but nothing yet 

Early May 1987. I was on a coach about 6am to go to the Rugby Challenge Cup final, waiting to set off. It was a freezing morning and a heavy hail shower kicked off, which briefly turned to either soft hail or snow (it was falling much more slowly than hail)

It actually turned out a lovely day (apart from the rugby) 

I saw snow last year in May on the 5th during this. A heavy shower turned completely to snow during the afternoon.

The only other time I've seen snow in May was also on the 5th in 2012 during this:

A brief morning snow shower. The one last year was actually a bit more impressive though despite the uppers being quite a bit higher.

Some quite remarkable members on the GEFS.

The -10 T850hpa isotherm will be cold enough for snow even during the day, though as always with a sun heated boundary layer those snowflakes are probably going to be rimed and will fall as soft hail..

It was so mild this winter I picked up a nice Alicante tomato plant in the supermarket at the end of March. Brought it in indoors and put it out in the Greenhouse last weekend. Never have I been so advanced. It has two sets of flowers and one has set fruit. Now I am going to have to heat the Greenhouse to keep it alive ! The cost of which will probably equal about 5 ib of tomatoes bought in said Supermarket!

As they say to us gardeners -"Ne'er cast a clout till May is out" !

Of course all these long term charts for HP over Iceland and perpetual Northern blocking never materialise do they? Oh hang on, I forgot that only applies in winter months. 

Yes that date is the latest for lying snow I have recorded too, there was a couple of inches. 

Maybe snowfall in May is more common given some of the above examples, it might have even happened here last year. 

Genuinely surprised I seem to have seen more snow in May than most on here. Granted I've never seen settling snow, but falling snow on two occasions, both in the last 10 years. Do most of you really have to go back to the 90s or 80s to find a May snow event?

I only record snow depth and days of cover in my records, as without staying up all night it is challenging to work out when a snowflake falls.   Snow falling in wintry showers  is pretty common here , especially from coolish zonality, whereas lying snow is much less common,  would have to be really dedicated to keep an accurate record of the former.