Spring 2018: General Discussion

mg1982

Not a bad day if it was the first week in february, not so pleasant for may. Hope the north west can get some of high pressure moving up for the bank holiday weekend but sounds like we will be on the edge of affairs.

Ultimate Seduction

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Planning an outdoor sesh on Monday, anxiously awaiting the 18z for an update

What time is that out? Share the good news please

Artane2002

Nice clear night after a decent day in Dublin.

Assetbacked

Feels cold in Dublin City centre near the Liffey with the breeze. Definitely need the coat!

Mars Bar

Disgusting morning in tuam. Dark and non stop rain so far.

Clonmel1000

How much good weather would we need to make up for this weather? It’s cold wet and dull again this morning.

Gonzo

rotten morning here, dark, grey, cold and wet. Looking like we may get 3 to 4 days tops out of this weekends fine spell. Back to unsettled muck by mid week.

sryanbruen

It's very May 2015-like this morning at Grange. Overcast and cold. Ugh. Just what I hate.

Periscal

Must concur with feeling of people above, we are racking these crappy days with no let up apart from 3-4 days break every 20 days or so, what I find quite strange is that according to Met.ie on their climate section, Casement finished 8.5 degrees for April, which is +0.5 against mean, also warmer then 2015,2016 and 2017! It was wetter then average though which would agree with my subjective feelings about April, not the temperatures, which I felt were colder then average.
Meanwhile, unofficial readings from my second home Slovakia ended on 16.2! which is the warmest April since daily readings began in 1871!

sryanbruen

Periscal wrote: »

Must concur with feeling of people above, we are racking these crappy days with no let up apart from 3-4 days break every 20 days or so, what I find quite strange is that according to Met.ie on their climate section, Casement finished 8.5 degrees for April, which is +0.5 against mean, also warmer then 2015,2016 and 2017! It was wetter then average though which would agree with my subjective feelings about April, not the temperatures, which I felt were colder then average.
Meanwhile, unofficially readings from my second home Slovakia ended on 16.2! which is the warmest April since daily readings began in 1871!

The nights made all the difference. They can have a large impact on mean temperatures regardless of the days. April 2015 whilst being very sunny and having warm days had some very cold nights with severe frosts. April 2016 was mostly cold and miserable throughout. April 2017 was similar to 2018 in a way besides the fact that it was very dry.

If you remember the second week where it was persistently dull within an easterly wind airstream, the days were chilly but the nights were mild and did not drop much below the mid single figures.

patneve2

Hoping for some decent sunny breaks over the next few days. Sunny spells coupled with SW winds is the only route to 20C conditions in my neck of the woods during late spring/early summer. Even a small hint of an onshore wind and temps struggle to get above 13-15C.

OldRio

Yeasterday was bad. Rain and cold temperatures. Today is worse. Rain started at 7.15 this morning and still raining.
More fuel needed for the house. Beyond a joke at this point.

Storm 10

I find ME forecast confusing, on Radio at lunchtime he said that sunshine would be at a premium this weekend as we enter a mild system from the South that will produce Coastal drizzle in the West and North and it will be cloudy elsewhere, just a few days ago we were looking at a fine warm weekend with lots of Sun.

sryanbruen

Storm 10 wrote: »

just a few days ago we were looking at a fine warm weekend with lots of Sun.

Where suggested this? I never saw anywhere doing so including the models.

Storm 10

sryanbruen wrote: »

Where suggested this? I never saw anywhere doing so including the models.

Well after the news last night they showed plenty of Sun on the charts at the end of their forecast, just saying

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/everyone-is-going-to-get-a-bit-of-something-good-this-bank-holiday-temperatures-to-soar-after-wettest-april-in-almost-80-years-36868933.html

Rebelbrowser

Forecast on rte 1 at lunch showed a 4c temp gradient from N to S on both Saturday and Sunday, i.e. 4 degrees warmer in the north than the south. Looking at the uppers in the models (which show any warmth creeping up from the SW) that seems counterintuitive. Anyone care to explain what I'm missing?

patneve2

From a Greater Dublin Area point of view, tomorrow could could see temperatures of 16C with mostly cloudy skies (with just the odd sunny break) or up to/even above the 20C mark if there are decent breaks in the cloud. Hard one to call. In any case the warmish SW wind will make it feel a lot milder compared to the past few days.

Oneiric 3

Storm 10 wrote: »

Well after the news last night they showed plenty of Sun on the charts at the end of their forecast, just saying

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/everyone-is-going-to-get-a-bit-of-something-good-this-bank-holiday-temperatures-to-soar-after-wettest-april-in-almost-80-years-36868933.html

That has to be one of the most ridiculous articles on weather I have ever read.


'Wettest April in 80 years' scream the headline, yes, but only in Valentia. Looking at Ireland as a whole, it has been the wettest April since 2009, which itself was actually wetter.


Prep sums based in the 11 station national mean:

April 2009: 110 mm

April 2018: 101 mm

Other gems include 'a soggy month at Cork Apt'; the 'mercury dipping to -5.3c in Mullingar. Really dire and stupid stuff, but what else does one expect from thicko journalists anyway?

squarecircles

it didnt take long for met eireanns forecast yesterday of fine weather for the west on Monday and tuesday,in a slack northeasterly with temperatures of 20/21 to evaporate completely from the forecast today to overcast and 12 degrees.

let me guess azores high ridging in from the southwest dragging pigmuck,seafog,drizzle and anticyclonic gloom impinging on to the coastal west and southwest.

glorious over in England for the next 10 days.

plenty of people sitting in pubs so for the bank holiday weekend.
what a truely depressing country this can be at times.

Storm 10

squarecircles wrote: »

it didnt take long for met eireanns forecast yesterday of fine weather for the west on Monday and tuesday,in a slack northeasterly with temperatures of 20/21 to evaporate completely from the forecast today to overcast and 12 degrees.

let me guess azores high ridging in from the southwest dragging pigmuck,seafog,drizzle and anticyclonic gloom impinging on to the coastal west and southwest.

glorious over in England for the next 10 days.

plenty of people sitting in pubs so for the bank holiday weekend.
what a truely depressing country this can be at times.

That's what I was saying in a previous post it appears that what we were expecting is not going to happen.

sryanbruen

Storm 10 wrote: »

Well after the news last night they showed plenty of Sun on the charts at the end of their forecast, just saying

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/everyone-is-going-to-get-a-bit-of-something-good-this-bank-holiday-temperatures-to-soar-after-wettest-april-in-almost-80-years-36868933.html

I rarely ever go near TV nowadays. I much rather paying attention to MT's forecasts or making my own based on my methodology and model interpretation. As far as what these have shown, this was never going to be a completely blue sky weekend. Ireland was always going to be on the knife edge just like many situations when it comes to transient Azores ridges, it's in our nature.

Those charts at the end of the forecast are pointless in many ways. One is that they have a symbol for each province instead of various symbols for different regions/counties and one temperature for the whole country. Why would you pay attention to something as ridiculous as that?

I've been looking at Met Éireann's national forecast on their site all week and they have not suggested one bit of completely blue skies everywhere and everyday. They have said mostly cloudy conditions for the weekend with sunshine tending to break up at times bringing some sunny intervals especially to the south and east.

The jet stream is too close to be delivering scorcher conditions.

So I'm not getting the confusion at all.

Storm 10

Yes the symbols at the end of ME forecasts drive me mad, they never agree with what was just said in their forecast. I have seen sun and cloud symbols on some days when they just told us it would be wet country wide. Why not show rain symbols then.

JCX BXC

Storm 10 wrote: »

Yes the symbols at the end of ME forecasts drive me mad, they never agree with what was just said in their forecast. I have seen sun and cloud symbols on some days when they just told us it would be wet country wide. Why not show rain symbols then.

Simply backs up my point of weather apps generalising the weather with symbols never work! A good forecast is written in words, naming possibilities. "Mostly cloudy with some sunny spells and a few isolated showers, possibly turning wintry" or "Partly cloudy, temperatures 15-18c but up to 21c in any extended sunny breaks" cannot be explained using a generalised symbol and a single temperature figure!

However, as I've said in the other thread, Met Eireanns own symbols are miles off their written forecast. They're not even closely correlated most of the time.

Ultimate Seduction

JCX BXC wrote: »

Simply backs up my point of weather apps generalising the weather with symbols never work! A good forecast is written in words, naming possibilities. "Mostly cloudy with some sunny spells and a few isolated showers, possibly turning wintry" or "Partly cloudy, temperatures 15-18c but up to 21c in any extended sunny breaks" cannot be explained using a generalised symbol and a single temperature figure!

However, as I've said in the other thread, Met Eireanns own symbols are miles off their written forecast. They're not even closely correlated most of the time.

God I hate that line in a forecast,
"Cloudy with sunny spells with showers possibly turning wintery"
Might aswell just say anything could happen

Clonmel1000

sryanbruen wrote: »

I rarely ever go near TV nowadays. I much rather paying attention to MT's forecasts or making my own based on my methodology and model interpretation. As far as what these have shown, this was never going to be a completely blue sky weekend. Ireland was always going to be on the knife edge just like many situations when it comes to transient Azores ridges, it's in our nature.

Those charts at the end of the forecast are pointless in many ways. One is that they have a symbol for each province instead of various symbols for different regions/counties and one temperature for the whole country. Why would you pay attention to something as ridiculous as that?

I've been looking at Met Éireann's national forecast on their site all week and they have not suggested one bit of completely blue skies everywhere and everyday. They have said mostly cloudy conditions for the weekend with sunshine tending to break up at times bringing some sunny intervals especially to the south and east.

The jet stream is too close to be delivering scorcher conditions.

So I'm not getting the confusion at all.

Excellent post as always Sryan. I work in a large area and I can tell you somehow it has entered the psyche of a lot of them that there is something approaching a heatwave approaching for the weekend. I’m sure there has been some rubbish articles in the media this week supporting this.


https://www.thesun.ie/news/2524301/irish-weather-chiefs-say-temperatures-will-reach-highs-of-20c-over-may-bank-holiday-weekend-as-southeast-set-to-see-best-of-sunny-spells/

Gonzo

things are working out fairly similar to what I said yesterday, some better days ahead but nothing out of the ordinary for early May. It can only be better than the miserable muck we had here today, we've often had dryer, milder days in December than today. Temps here struggled to hit 10C all day and feeling much cooler than that.

We are very unlikely to see proper blue skies but if we can pull off a few decent warm and sunny intervals between now and Monday then i'm ok with that. Unfortunately for us the settled spell won't last very long, possibly confined to England and Wales by Tuesday.

London and the south-east of England look like they are in for a great 5-10 days of warm, hazy sunny days. The Jetstream//atlantic spoiling it for Ireland, Scotland and nw fringes of England/Wales.

Meteorite58

Well it is going to be a lot better over the coming days then the cold showery and windy weather that we have been having the last couple of weeks. Good temperatures inland ,fairly calm away from coasts, cloudy at times yes yes but places should get some decent enough sunshine / sunny spells also. The Atlantic seaboard might get plagued with cloud and mist / drizzle at times but hopefully we will get the bit of sunshine also .

20C is not to be sneezed at :pac:

Meteorite58

SleetAndSnow

Fairly optimistic about those charts. They said max 14-16 here in Cork City last time, we ended up getting up to the 20's and so.

Maidhci

Disappointing day here again in West Connemara - very very foggy, drizzly etc. etc. not what I was expecting from listening to the forecasts earlier this week. It would be lovely to get a glimpse of the sun!

From memory, I think it was predicted that we would have some sunshine this weekend and higher temperatures in the west of the county by Sunday / Monday - no mention of that this morning!!