Sunny and dry April

The early April figures (1st – 28th April) show it was a sunny and warm month over all, with well above average sunshine almost everywhere. At the moment it ranks as the fifth sunniest April across the UK as a whole. Some locations, particularly in the East of the country, have so far seen almost 50% more sunshine than average.  East Scotland has had its sunniest April on record, beating 1942’s 200 hours of sunshine by 2 hours and it was the second sunniest for England East and NE with 212.4 – just behind 2011 with 216.9 5 hours.

Cherry blossom © design_energy

Mean temperatures for the month have been also mostly above average. The mean temperature for the UK was 8.0 C, which is 0.6C above the long-term (1981-2010) average for the whole month. Daytime temperatures rose above average in many areas, especially in the south, with the year’s highest temperature so far (25.6 °C) recorded at Faversham (Kent) on the afternoon of the 15th. This is the highest April temperature anywhere in the UK since 2011.

However, in contrast, under often clear skies, minimum temperatures have been near or below average, particularly in Northern Ireland and parts of northern England and southern Scotland. Katesbridge (County Down) recorded -8.0 °C on 27th April.

April has been a dry month, particularly across the southern half of the UK with only a third, to a half, of normal rainfall quite widely and less than 20% in some places.

Data from the Met Office’s UK digitised records dating back to 1910. You can explore our climate data on our website. Clearly these are early month figures and the statistics at the end of the month will change somewhat.

© Met Office