It’s been sunny all day here, with only fluffy cumulus drifting by. Genuinely looks like a summer’s day, but certainly doesn’t feel like one. 

Luckily though the sun is rather strong now so it feels pleasant enough, particularly with the UV index now being around 4. Plus we exceeded 8C today despite a forecast high of only 6C. 

Yes at this time of year I think a 20C gradient from 850mb temps to 2m temps is attainable if you have sunshine. 

Im just pretending I’m on a skiing holiday and enjoying a beer in the sunshine in my warm coat at an outdoor temperature of 6C. 

Here in Edinburgh, it is a similar story with lots of sunshine and temperatures of around 7°C. That makes today, our coldest day of this year so far, but only just although we have already had more air frosts during this month than what we had during March which is not exactly what we should be expecting given that this should be a warming time of the year (if this was October, we would be expecting to get our first air frosts of the season, so this is actually when we should be starting to see our first temperatures of over 20°C for the year, especially as we get further on into this month).

Nevertheless, this usually always seems to be the one time of the year when we are guaranteed sunshine here. That happened last year and now, this appears to happening again and in that regard, it doesn't even seem to matter what the synoptics are actually like. At the same time, this has also become a time of year when it virtually never rains here and in recent years, there has been at least a couple of occasions when there has hardly been any rain here during the whole of the month of April and up until now, that appears to be happening once again.

You can't get snow if there isn't any precipitation around which can fall as snow, and that is what is happening here just now  When you add all of that together, this cold spell is turning out to be nothing different from what we have become used to seeing during recent years and yet, it never used to be like that because I can remember many Aprils in the past which would be wet and miserable due to southerly tracking lows which would still come far enough north to affect us here in Edinburgh.

Back then, northerlies in the winter would never bring any snow here but at this time of the year, it would then become a different story altogether due to the increased strength of the Sun which would then cause those snow showers to develop here during the day under this same air mass. That is something else, which doesn't appear to happen here any more, so I'm not expecting that to happen with this cold spell.

Really? 

You're right, I meant to say this month rather than this year.

However, everything else is as it always is with yet more bright sunshine during this morning. Another point as regard to it always being sunny at this time of the year as that we are even completely devoid of any of the east coast haar which we have usually been renowned for getting at this time of the year from an easterly, so that is clearly becoming something else which never happens here any more.

Of course, we haven't really had any easterlies during this spring so far but when we we do get them, it is now often still turning out to be sunny these days even then (albeit cooler on the east coast itself), especially as we get into the afternoon, so that also adds to it being sunny for most of the time at this time of the year.

It used to be the case that we would need to make the most of any sunny spells which are around as the next period of relatively poor weather was always just around the corner with the sunshine never being guaranteed to come back. Nowadays, I can actually pick and choose the time and day when I decide to make the most of that because I know that this sunshine is usually always going to be here, especially at this time of year.

This current spell of weather isn't giving us any exception whatsoever to that rule, and I just wish that it could be like that during the summer rather than just now because even even it is cold, it is always going to be pleasant in that sunshine even if there is a raging northerly if you have some shelter from that as Jerry will no doubt have in his garden. 

3cm of fresh snow, -1C moderate westerly wind. Occ snow showers.

It's not exactly a snap if it stays on the cold side until about the 20th.
Another frosty subzero night with wind scorching grass away just when it should be starting to grow properly.
Global warming is such a biatch we really need to be be a degree colder, maybe someone with loads of money  should try to blot out the sun.

The BBC is forecasting a local April very low low temperature tonight which would probably be a record locally. The coldest in my lifetime was -3 way back in 1978. Otterbourne is my nearest station, showing -5 but down the road in Eastleigh it's suggesting -6. https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2650396

As last night, the MetO is having none of it, preferring -3 which is still very cold.

I think that last nights chilly minus three C here in South Dorset must have been one of the coldest April nights for me too. It's the desiccating wind I hate and as Four mentions it can't be classed as a Snap if it continues in some form for say even a week.

 Yes 78 was cold . Had to actually thaw out water pipes which is unusual in April. I think i recorded -5 that year in April but  i only had a max min thermometer on the wall so not real accurate.

Still waiting for the "cold snap" to arrive here.   Overnight mins of -2c to -3c and daytime temps of 8c to 10c are about as rare in early April as hen's beaks in these parts.    And in the oid days April snow showers lasted for more than one minute 25 seconds 

Now, when Gloucester is cut off by snowdrifts, then it'll be an April cold snap!

Second best weather day of the year for here IMO. Bright this morning but snow showers on and off through the afternoon. TBH this easily trumps the February easterly for me, but I know the Kent contingent will have a very different point of view.

Today's maximum temperature at my local site at Kew Gardens was 7.1C compared with the maxmum there 7 days ago on 30th March of 24.5C.

It started me wondering how often there has been a change in maximum temperture of 17.4 degrees C (downwards) in 7 days or less

The MetOffice MIDAS dataset now has daily maximum temperature data for Kew Gardens from 1882 up to 2020 so it is possible to find out - and it turns out that it is very rare

There have only been 5 occasions in 139 years where there has been a downward maximum shift of 17.4 degrees or more over that entire period for this particular site

in 2 days 25-27 July 2019 from 37.6C to 20.0C  (down 17.6)

In 5 days 14-19 May 1891 from 24.4C to 6.1C (down 18.3)

In 5 days 24-29 Nov 1890 from 14.6C to -3.6C (down 18.2)

In 6 days 31 May - 6 Jun 1942 from 29.9C to 11.7C (down 18.2)

In 7 days 30 Mar - 6 Apr 2021 from 24.5C to 7.1C (down 17.4)