Locally to me, 2011 was sunnier, but we're talking the elite Aprils here. That's where 2015 stands out - it wasn't insanely warm like 2011 or 2007, with the nights often on the chilly side... more in keeping with the theme of clear skies of course! Those other two years were freaky.

I had a funny quirk of stats with last winter compared to the one before;
2013/14 racked up 262.3 hours of sun, while 14/15 racked up 263.2 hours. Yeah I had to double check that too.

2014 and 2015 are also close in the battle for sunniest first four months, at 537.5 and 527.5 hours respectively to the end of April. Again with the uncannily similar numbers!

Yet that battle has been lost by both; 2011 had 580.9 hours to the end of April while 2003 had 552.8 hours.

A dreary run of days in February is largely to blame for 2015's shortfall, and this was experienced most in the far south, so many central parts have had greater excesses of sunshine so far this year than I have seen.

I hope this trend continues for the next 5 months

April 2011: warmest on record 

April 2012: wettest on record

April 2015: sunniest on record

After a pretty quiet period, November is 3rd warmest on record and by the looks of it, one of the dullest.

2011 (2nd) and 1994? (1st) ?

[quote=Gavin P;739044]

2011 (2nd) and 1994? (1st) ?

[Thank You. My records indicate 2011 but only go back to 1997. My memory which people tell me is good, has 1970 as a mild November particularly the second half of November 1970 and the first week or so of December that year]

Another one to add to the list of 'specials' since 2006. Thanks for all the work you put into this. It's creating a database for the future.

The decadal period 2006-2015 is near the end and 26.6% of the months have been in the top 10 of at least one of the categories in this period. 1 in 4 months effectively.

It looks a real possibility that the final month of this decadal period could be one of the most remarkable if not THE most remarkable out of them all.

Top 10 months regards to CET, EWP rainfall, EW sunshine or a combination of since 1st January 2006

July 2006
September 2006
October 2006
November 2006
January 2007
April 2007
June 2007
January 2008
February 2008
August 2008
December 2008
November 2009
December 2009
December 2010
April 2011
October 2011
November 2011
March 2012
April 2012
June 2012
December 2012
July 2013
October 2013
January 2014
February 2014
April 2014
September 2014

December 2014

January 2015

April 2015

November 2015

December 2015

Statistically unlikely within that short period, and given it includes the dullest, sunniest, wettest, driest, warmest and coldest- scientifically unlikely too for any particular reason- unless we can say that, in Central England, extremes have definitely increased.

Great analysis Kev

Just looking at the top ones (months) in the last 10 years

Warmest July: 2006

Sunniest July: 2006

Warmest September: 2006

Sunniest November: 2006

Warmest April: 2007 (surpassed by April 2011)

Sunniest February: 2008

Dullest August: 2008

Warmest April: 2011

Wettest April: 2012

Wettest June: 2012

Dullest June: 2012 

Wettest January: 2014

Sunniest April: 2015

Warmest December: 2015

Scotland

Warmest July: 2006

Warmest September: 2006

Warmest April: 2007 (surpassed by 2011)

Warmest May: 2008

Wettest November: 2009

Coldest December: 2010

Warmest April: 2011

Wettest May: 2011

Warmest November: 2011

Warmest March: 2012

Wettest December: 2015

Northern Ireland

Wettest August: 2008

Dullest August: 2008

Wettest August: 2008

Wettest November: 2009

Sunniest December: 2010

Wettest October: 2011

Dullest November: 2011

Dullest June: 2012

Wettest June: 2012

Dullest May: 2014

Driest September: 2014

Sunniest April: 2015

------------

And yet we often hear people moaning on here that we're stuck in a boring (dire vile filthy etc etc) perpetual autumn!

What I find notable about that list is the lack of extremely dry months. The predictions have been for wetter winters and drier summers to increase.

Wettest and warmest dominate that list. It's not so much a surprise that coldness is lacking but where are the extremely dry months? There have been very dry months but they have been eclipsed by the very wet ones and they have been record breaking ones at that.

The last record breaking dry month for the 1766 rainfall series was August 1995.

I'm never quite sure how they work out rainfall totals for the country as a whole. Do they just average all stations, or is it more complex than that?

I wonder whether general dryness may be getting hidden by more extreme storms skewing the rainfall figures up? Often in summer it can be generally dry but a few stations will pick up very large rainfall totals from thunderstorms.

Storms can skew rainfall figures. Infact, exceptionally wet months or seasons are not exceptionally wet everywhere. However, given the theory that extremes are caused by weather patterns getting stuck in a rut for long period, it does beg the question why hasn't there been such an extended period of high pressure to give a record breaking dry season or month? 

Here's hoping you can add January 16 to the collection, in the 'record breaking snow depths' category 

Did April 2011 not make it? Had 0.5mm at my nearest station and 0 days of rain >1mm. Bar a totally rainless month, it's hard to get much drier than that.

Its was one of the driest, over England and Wales as a whole April 2007 was even drier. 

That's (another) good point Rob. If we're having such a lion share of the extremes in recent times, it would stand to reason that the weather of the past was unbearably boring if it's dull now- and yet, talking about it is part of our cultural identity, as Richard Mabey has pointed out. Probably more talked about than- dare I say- sport.

Conclusion: our weather is constantly amazing. I'm sure no one in Tumbuctu would disagree.

Not necessarily: an extreme wet or dull summer followed by an extreme warm winter would be the definition of a boring Autumn climate. We've not had routinely colder winters and hotter drier summers, which would make the climate seem more extreme.

Re dry months, and as an aside. It's interesting to look into the detail of the regional climate model projections for Western Europe, both in terms of timing and geographical variation. They do show wetter winters almost uniformly, but the modelled dry summers only cover Southern England and the continent. But more interestingly, the dry summer projection is for the 2050-2080 timeframe. On the time series I've seen (I'll try to dig them out) there is a bit of a bump up in summer rainfall in the first couple of decades before a steep decline. This kind of detail understandably gets lost when we tend to be shown just the end state. Right, now I have to get googling to find those time series.

Aah, but you see Tim, that's where subjectivity undoes itself. Although some of your points are (genuinely) interesting, they don't respond pertinently to my comment about the weather being amazing. You see, I quoted a conclusion- my conclusion; and only I can conclude that I am amazed (or unamazed) by it. This isn't one you can prove, disprove, or even contribute to with science alone. And quite right too- the thread name is about 'remarkable'- we're all remarking on it. Call it semantics, call it lexicology; but you simply can't use the definition when referring to a human receptive response like 'boring.' You can of course say it's your definition (unless of course you have done an 8-out-of-10 cats thing). Now, that would be boring. And, of course, if you were to say my post was boring, I would probably agree with you.

Addendum: extreme is not the antonym of boring.

It may have snucked in as in the top 10 wettest Januaries for England and Wales!

Interesting. Jan 2008 and 2014 were both much wetter in this part of the world.