Showers and grey skies mean April has felt especially chilly, Met Office says
April has been a ‘month of two halves’ with a warm couple of weeks followed by chillier weather and more rain than average, the Met Office said.
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Grey skies and rain mean April has felt unusually cold, the Met Office said.
April has been a “month of two halves”, with a warm fortnight followed by chillier weather – meaning that the average temperature for the month remains above the norm, according to forecasters.
Despite this, a lack of sunshine and persistent rain may have contributed to it feeling colder than expected for springtime, the Met Office has suggested.
Forecasters expect warmer temperatures to return from Wednesday, with south-east England set to enjoy highs of up to around 20C.
So far this month, the maximum temperature recorded was 21.8C in Writtle, Essex, and a low of minus 6.3C in Shap, Cumbria – with a UK-wide average of 8.4C, according to the Met Office.
Data from the forecaster shows that the UK has seen an average of 99mm of rainfall in April so far, which is 27% higher than usual for the month.
Amy Bokota, senior meteorologist at the Met Office, said: “It’s been a month of two halves where it’s been quite warm for the first half, and then quite cool up until now, and then it’s expecting to warm back up again.
“So on the whole, it’ll probably be on the warmer side of average.”
She continued: “It’s definitely wetter than average for the UK as a whole, so there you’re going to be seeing rain and grey skies and a lot of places have been quite dull so far for the time of year.”
When asked why people may feel it’s been colder than expected for springtime, despite temperatures suggesting otherwise, Ms Bokota replied: “The last couple of weeks has just been quite cooler than average.
“It’s been quite a dull month – duller than it should be on average – so there’s been less sunshine around, so that kind of impacts what people feel with the weather as well.
“It’s been mainly unsettled and changeable, so I think that just sort of feeds into people’s interpretation of what the weather feels like.”
The meteorologist said that although the forecast next week is looking warmer from Wednesday, it might not be the “glorious heatwave” people are hoping for ahead of the May bank holiday weekend.