Met Office Hadley          11.03c.      Anomaly     0.8c.   Provisional to  14th.

Metcheck                      10.79c.      Anomaly   -0.62c.

N-W                             11.38c.      Anomaly    0.09c.

Mount Sorrel                 11.32c.    Anomaly    -0.02c.

My Mean                       11.7c.     Anomaly      0.5c.

Looking at some of the latest charts and forecasts - I might be in luck.

Met Office Hadley         11.5c.      Anomaly    0.9c.    Provisional to 15th.

Metcheck                      10.99c.    Anomaly   -0.42c.

N-W                             11.56.      Anomaly    0.27c. 

Mount Sorrel                 11.60c.    Anomaly    0.30c.

My Mean                       12.00c.    Anomaly    0.8c.     

Met Office Hadley          11.7c.     Anomaly     1.0c.    Provisional to 16th.

Metcheck                     11.31c.    Anomaly    -0.09c.

N-W                            11.83c.    Anomaly      0.54c.

Mount Sorrel                11.97c.    Anomaly      0.67c. 

My  Mean                     12.4c.     Anomaly       1.2c.        

My CET estimate is still running about 0.45C below the Hadley data which has been very poor at picking up some low minimums this month.

After another few very warm days the current output suggests the temperatures will return to about 1C above average for the rest of the month. There is definitely plenty of room for uncertainty here and it could end up being somewhat warmer.

Even with a return to more average conditions and the fact that my figures are currently well below the Hadley data I am still expecting this month to end up 1.33C above the long run average. So the very mild conditions continue.

We are currently on course for the 3rd warmest first five months of the year on record behind only 2007 and 1990.

So far we have not seen a 25C yet anywhere in the UK this year. Yesterday was the warmest day of the year so far at 23.9C at Santon Downham. There is certainly a chance either today or tomorrow that we might reach 25C somewhere.

Here is the list of the first dates on when 25C was reached in recent years. Last year was a late one as we had to wait until 6 June

Looks like I might do OK this month.

Met Office Hadley       11.9c.      Anomaly    1.2c.    Provisional    to   17th.

Metcheck                   11.62c.    Anomaly     0.21c.

N-W                          12.09c.    Anomaly     0.79c.

Mount Sorrel             12.26c.     Anomaly    0.96c.

My  Mean                  12.8c.      Anomaly    1.6c.    

24.5C today at St James Park. 25C will almost certainly be reached somewhere tomorrow.

Met Office Hadley       12.1c.      Anomaly      1.4c.        Provisional to  18th.

Metcheck                      11.86c.     Anomaly       0.45c.

N-W                             12.36c.     Anomaly       1.06c.

Mount Sorrel                 12.49c.     Anomaly       1.19c.

My  Mean                      13.1c.       Anomaly       1.9c. 

Met Office Hadley        12.4c.      Anomaly     1.7c.    Provisional   to 19th.

Metcheck                    12.16c.     Anomaly     0.76c.

N-W                           12.66c.     Anomaly    1.37c.

Mount Sorrel               12.81c.     Anomaly    1.51c.

My  Mean                    13.4c       Anomaly     2.2c.

26.3C at Heathrow yesterday.

Met Office Hadley        12.5c.      Anomaly       1.8c.      Provisional  to 20th.

Metcheck                    12.7c.      Anomaly       0.87c.

N-W                           12.83c.    Anomaly       1.54c.

Mount Sorrel               12.93c.    Anomaly       1.63c.

My Mean                     13.5c.     Anomaly        2.3c.

Met Office Hadley        12.6c.       Anomaly      1.8c.      Provisional to 21st.

Metcheck                    12.36c.     Anomaly      0.95c.

N-W                           12.92c.     Anomaly      1.63c.

Mount Sorrel               13.05c.     Anomaly      1.75c.

My Mean                     13.6c.      Anomaly       2.4c.     

IMBY

Month 9.67C

Min 4.57C

Max 14.77C

Met Office Hadley.         12.5c.     Anomaly   1.7c.   Provisional to 22nd.

Metcheck                      12.35c.   Anomaly   0.94c.

N-W                             12.91c.   Anomaly   1.62c.

Mount Sorrel                 13.01c.   Anomaly   1.72c.

My Mean                       13.6c.    Anomaly    2.4c.

A bit cooler at the moment than was expected this time last week. So my CET estimate has fallen back a bit. Currently expecting the May CET to come in around 12.4C on the basis it warms up a bit towards the end of next week.

Met Office Hadley       12.5c.      Anomaly    1.7c.  Provisional to 23rd.

Metcheck                   12.31c.    Anomaly    0.90c.  

N-W                          12.9c.     Anomaly     1.61c.

Mount Sorrel              12.97c.   Anomaly     1.67c.

My Mean                    13.5c     Anomaly      2.3c.

The Spring CET has only ever exceeded 10C on four occasions. This year will see the fifth with a very similar figure expected to 2007. I think we may in the end just creep above 2007 into third place. Three of the five warmest Springs ever will have happened in the last eight years.

Warmest Spring CET's ever:

2011 10.21C
1893 10.20C
2007 10.08C
2014 10.08C EST
1945 10.07C

Worth noting that of the years above only 1893 saw an above average summer with all other years at or below average.

If we look at years with a Spring CET of 9.7C or more and an Apr-May CET combination of 10.9C or more we find 10 matching years since 1893. Of these 8 had a June CET higher than average and 6 of these years were more than 0.5C above average. The only exceptions were 1999 and 2011 which were both very slightly below average.

So while the pattern matching may suggest a good chance of a rather poor summer overall, there is in fact a fairly good chance of seeing a reasonably warm June. It is July and August we need to worry more about I think.

So far this year is shaping up remarkably similar to 2007 which also saw a very warm first half of the year followed by a very poor July and August and a very average final third of the year. It will be interesting to see if 2014 follows the same pattern.

The end of the first half of 2007 coincided with a flip from slightly positive Oceanic Nino Index (ONI) values to slightly negative values from which followed a moderate La Nina event. Currently we have been in low negative ONI values for over a year. There are suggestions we could be moving into a postive ONI phase soon.

From an ONI perspective 2009 may therefore be a better match than 2007 and that year saw an average summer. So I would certainly not be writing off summer 2014 at this stage. I don't see any signs of a heatwave at this point but we might see something close to average if we are lucky.

Looking at rainfall data it seems that July has tended to be very wet in years that follow a similar pattern to what we are seeing this year temperature wise. 1893, 2007 and 2009 all saw over 100mm of rain on the EWP series in July with August averaging 60mm in these years. So a relatively wet summer is a distinct possibility.

The way 2014 has achieved this has been very different to years like 2011 and 2007 though 

Unlike those years, we've not had an extensive spell of high pressure lasting for an unusually long time this spring, with mid-March the only notably long spell of dry weather IMBY.

Along with this, I'm looking at a wetter than average April and May this year, and although I do recall that April wasn't so wet for the CET region, it still marks another notable difference with 2011 and 2007.

All this leaves me wondering what the patterns were like in 1893... 

http://modeles.meteociel.fr/modeles/reana/1893/archivesnh-1893-4-21-12-0.png

Rather unscientific, but I just put in a random date (21st April) for that spring and the pattern happens to be rather familiar... 

http://modeles.meteociel.fr/modeles/reana/1893/archivesnh-1893-5-7-12-0.png

There's the, erm, tenendcy for blocking to the NE as we're seeing this year, but... rather more extreme 

For all I know the rest of the time was very different, but it's intriguing to see such similarities from unguided selection.

I do hope it's different to 2007 because it was a very wet summer here and we had our worst flood in living memory during June 2007.

Met Office Hadley       12.5c.      Anomaly      1.6c.      Provisional  to 24th.

Metcheck                   12.27c.     Anomaly       0.86c.

N-W                          12.86c.     Anomaly       1.56c.

Mount Sorrel              12.92c.     Anomaly       1.62c.

My Mean                    13.4c.      Anomaly       2.2c.

Met Office Hadley.       12.5c.    Anomaly      1.5c.   Provisional  to 25th.

Metcheck                    12.25c   Anomaly      0.85c.

N-W                           12.87c.  Anomaly      1.58c.

Mount Sorrel               12.89c.  Anomaly      1.59c.

My Mean                     13.4c.    Anomaly      2.2c.                  

Interesting that it'll be yet another warm month that, a couple of days last week notwithstanding, hasn't really produced any 'hot' weather - just a lack of cold.

Met Office Hadley           12.4c.       Anomaly        1.5c.       Provisional to  26th.

Metcheck                       12.26c.     Anomaly         0.85c.

N-W                               12.84c.    Anomaly         1.54c.

Mount Sorrel                   12.85c.    Anomaly         1.55c.

My  Mean                        13.4c.      Anomaly         2.2c.