Spring 2018: General Discussion

Meteorite58

The cold is a bit of a shock to the system today at 6.5C in an E'ly breeze having just got back from Western Australia. Had contrasting temperatures there with a big difference between Perth getting up to the high thirties and avg around 29C and down South in Albany struggling in the mid teens a couple of days. Had some rain from the remnants of Cyclone Marcus and the surfers were getting all exited with the prospects of getting a big swell from a Northerly direction giving uncommon sets of waves. Was quite close to Hamlin Bay where the mass stranding of whales occurred recently, got the heebie- jeebies when we heard the warning to be careful swimming due to the expected influx of sharks attracted to the area getting into a possible feeding frenzy !
The sun was very needed after the long winter which is still refusing to let go it seems. Noticeable to me after getting back is the lack of growth and and the wintry look across the countryside very much still in evidence. Roll on the Spring proper.

Pic : Fremantle 19-3-18 : 18.50 / 26C

yellowlabrador

It's a miserable day here in West Cork, wet and cold. 4c and feeling much colder. I'm getting my courage together to take the dogs out and then deal with wet dogs.

Clonmel1000

Awful day. Nothing else to say. Where is our spring?

pad199207

Has held out dry here so far today

SleetAndSnow

Raining since about 10/10:30am here non stop , miserable day

nacho libre

kittyn wrote: »

Eh you forgot about me nacho ����

Forgive me Kittyn:(
I know you are one of the few who would welcome snow in July if it was on offer.

It looks like we are back to the pattern we had in December, milder weather alternating with with cooler northwesterlies. No real sign of anything warmed and settled.
I see a certain Met Eireann forceaster was trolling her followers about a long and hot summer

Artane2002

It was an ok start to the day with overcast skies but it has deteriorated with rain getting heavier in Dublin.

To reflect on March, if we didn't have the two beasts then that would've been one of the crappiest month of weather I've experienced, gives the likes of December 2015 and February 2017 (the first week of Feb 2017 was shockingly bad with mild temperatures, high humidity and constant drizzle here) a run for their money. Thanks to the beasts, it is actually one of the best months I've experienced, despite the large number of days with cloudy skies or rain.

sryanbruen

Clonmel1000 wrote: »

Sryan any prospect of an improvement on the cards?

Things are slowly improving. Milder for a time tomorrow and Tuesday with warm air pushing northwards behind the rain bringing temperatures into double figures (perhaps 13 or 14c in the localised spot on Tuesday). Wednesday will be a rather cooler day as winds veer back to a northwesterly feeding in showers, temperatures of the margin between single figures and low teens. Thursday will be somewhat milder around 10-11c generally but with this comes a cost of rain pushing eastwards on a freshening southerly wind. This rain clears on Friday to the northeast leaving us in a southerly wind with sunshine and showers. Feeling almost tropical than of late with temperatures widely between 12-14c, maybe higher in some localised spots.

The details after Friday are uncertain so I can't really see where we will go but the worst of the cold has now been lifted. As a result, we should see fairly close to average temperatures for the time of year during much of the period and even some warmer days at times.

These are the GFS ensembles for Thurles showing you what I said.



In terms of the indexes, the AO after an initial negative phase for this week which means blocking will be an occurrence up there and try to send cold into the mid-latitudes (it will do so for us briefly on Wednesday and into Thursday), seems to be going the positive route but not overly positive and there's even some outliers continuing it to be negative into the middle of April but hey, they're outliers. As it will go positive, this means we should see weakening of the blocking up there and low pressure to develop instead which makes the westerlies easier to take place for us. Sometimes, this can translate to some very nice Spring weather but only if other factors come into play such as the NAO which I will look at next here.



Meanwhile, the NAO at the moment is very slightly negative, is expected to go to neutral and then quite significant positive levels according to the GFS ensembles through the second week of April. This means the Azores High is getting its act together and blocking is weakening over Greenland to the point where it doesn't exist. In terms of the NAO, this looks very good for some nice Spring weather but if only we could guarantee that.



For now, there's some hopes for some decent Spring weather to arrive sometime courtesy of the strengthening positive NAO but there is too much uncertainty. At least, the worst of the cold is going to be gone though.

Clonmel1000

Thanks for that sryan as informative as ever. This weekend has been an unmitigated disaster weather wise. Great to get a few days off but nothing can be done in the garden etc and you’d be brave to plan any outdoor activities really.

Wine Goddess

Thanks a million for a very detailed and informative answer, Sryan!

sryanbruen

They made changes to the March 2018 rainfall total for Dublin Airport with it now having 100.0mm for the month making it one of the wettest on record but not the wettest. So we were right to be skeptical of the high totals.

https://beta.met.ie/climate/available-data/monthly-data

LoMismo

Absolutely disgusting outside here in Dublin 5. We really do have some world class miserable weather in this country. Argh, my Kingdom for some dry calm weather.

SleetAndSnow

Foggy, damp, spitty rain and windy here in west Cork. Not very nice

Donegal Storm

Meteorite58 wrote: »

The cold is a bit of a shock to the system today at 6.5C in an E'ly breeze having just got back from Western Australia. Had contrasting temperatures there with a big difference between Perth getting up to the high thirties and avg around 29C and down South in Albany struggling in the mid teens a couple of days. Had some rain from the remnants of Cyclone Marcus and the surfers were getting all exited with the prospects of getting a big swell from a Northerly direction giving uncommon sets of waves. Was quite close to Hamlin Bay where the mass stranding of whales occurred recently, got the heebie- jeebies when we heard the warning to be careful swimming due to the expected influx of sharks attracted to the area getting into a possible feeding frenzy !
The sun was very needed after the long winter which is still refusing to let go it seems. Noticeable to me after getting back is the lack of growth and and the wintry look across the countryside very much still in evidence. Roll on the Spring proper.

Making me jealous! I lived in Margaret River for a year a while back, lovely part of the world with a great summer/autumn climate (winters not much better than here though!).


Here in Donegal it's not been a bad weekend, cold and windy but plenty of sunshine and no real rain until the past hour, horrible out now though. Looks like I'll be driving into the rain all afternoon now heading back to Kildare :rolleyes:

Gonzo

past few days were ok, cold but was able to go outside. Today is totally miserable, too wet and cold outside. Heating and lights on full today.

Meteorite58

Donegal Storm wrote: »

Making me jealous! I lived in Margaret River for a year a while back, lovely part of the world with a great summer/autumn climate (winters not much better than here though!).


Here in Donegal it's not been a bad weekend, cold and windy but plenty of sunshine and no real rain until the past hour, horrible out now though. Looks like I'll be driving into the rain all afternoon now heading back to Kildare :rolleyes:

Was in Margaret River too, nice area . A lot cooler then Perth when we visited.

Temperature a bit improved here near Tralee now at 11.6C, at least the sting is gone out of it. A few blue slivers of sky . Missed the bulk of the rain here with just 3.2mm recorded and dry since early this morning.

Clonmel1000

Lashing down with rain here again. Such a waste of a long weekend in many respects. You can sense people are weary from it.

Artane2002

Cold, wet and miserable in Dublin again.

giveitholly

Yes a truly awful day

JCX BXC

Saturday was lovely, yesterday was awful and today was grand, dry but cold and cloudy. Not a particularly awful weekend here in West Clare.

Rock Lesnar

Was in fairyhouse and it was a horrible day, wet and miserable, now im heading home to a grand warm fire

Clonmel1000

Was Easter Sunday colder than Christmas Day?

km79

JCX BXC wrote: »

Saturday was lovely, yesterday was awful and today was grand, dry but cold and cloudy. Not a particularly awful weekend here in West Clare.

Saturday gorgeous
Sunday dry until night but cool
Today was cold with showers

I had outdoor work to do Saturday which I got done so I’m hapoy enough

To be fair the last 2 months have been dry bar snow . And that was BADLY needed in east Galway

sryanbruen

Clonmel1000 wrote: »

Was Easter Sunday colder than Christmas Day?

Here's a table of comparison with stations' maximum temperatures for both days.

For the large majority yes it was. The exceptions being Belmullet where Christmas Day was relatively colder and at Newport where both days had the same maximum temperature.

Station|Christmas Day 2017|Easter Sunday 2018
Athenry|10.4|7.9
Ballyhaise|10.8|7.4
Belmullet|7.5|8.2
Casement Aerodrome|11.3|6.1
Claremorris|9.3|8.9
Cork Airport|10.1|5.5
Dublin Airport|11.6|6.2
Finner Camp|9.0|8.1
Dunsany|11.2|6.9
Gurteen|11.1|7.5
Johnstown Castle|10.7|7.0
Knock Airport|8.2|6.8
Mace Head|9.5|8.2
Malin Head|8.7|6.5
Markree|10.0|8.1
Moore Park|11.1|6.6
Mt Dillon|10.7|8.0
Mullingar|10.3|7.3
Newport|8.9|8.9
Oak Park|11.9|7.0
Phoenix Park|12.0|6.8
Roche's Point|10.8|6.6
Shannon Airport|11.2|8.3
Sherkin Island|11.3|7.5
Valentia Observatory|11.0|6.9


Data comes from Met Éireann.

Clonmel1000

Maybe we should start a white Easter thread here yearly.

JCX BXC

Clonmel1000 wrote: »

Maybe we should start a white Easter thread here yearly.

Dramatic.

beefburrito

JCX BXC wrote: »

Dramatic.

What's so dramatic about that ???

sryanbruen

Clonmel1000 wrote: »

Maybe we should start a white Easter thread here yearly.

Don't think you would have been saying that in 2010-11 .

Upper air temperatures for Christmas 2010 and Easter 2011, the former was one of the coldest on record whilst the latter was one of the warmest on record.

km79

km79 wrote: »

Saturday gorgeous
Sunday dry until night but cool
Today was cold with showers

I had outdoor work to do Saturday which I got done so I’m hapoy enough

To be fair the last 2 months have been dry bar snow . And that was BADLY needed in east Galway

Well I rightly jinxed it !
Absolutely pouring all morning
And cold

Artane2002

It was very foggy here in Dublin 5 (around 3km inland) around 2am. I could hear the foghorns offshore. I haven't heard them since around 10-11 January (or whenever those two extremely foggy nights were in January 2018). I don't really associate fog with April, it's more of a September-December thing for me for some reason.

Also for the first time in a while, I can say it's quite a decent morning, extensive cloud cover but the sun is managing to break through.