THE Bank Holiday weekend is here and for once I can promise some decent weather.
Today will start off with the remnants of the overnight cloud and rain which will clear away to leave a day of sunny spells as the cloud breaks up in a westerly breeze.
Temperatures will climb to say 13-15C in the sunshine fall away to 3-4C overnight. Both tomorrow and Bank Holiday Monday will see plenty of dry and sunny weather as pressure rises over southern England and as a result temperatures will climb higher than Saturday to 16-19C.
There is a good chance that we will see the magic 21C (70F) by Tuesday so enjoy it while we can.
So with April now confined to history here are the stats.
The mean temperature for the month panned out at 8C, about one degree down on where it should be, which was all thanks to the bitterly cold first week. Rainfall wise, I recorded only 28.5mm making it the driest month since February last year.
Compare this then to last April when 126mm fell from the skies. It looks as though the dry spell may well continue into this month with little rain in the forecast and this holiday weekend looks like we will enjoy the warmest early May holiday weather since 2008 when temperatures climbed to 21C on the Monday and higher still at 25C on the 7th and 8th.In fact May 2008 was the joint warmest along with 1998 and 1992.
Looking back 30 years to may 1983 and what a washout that was.
A full 55mm fell over the holiday weekend and then further rain brought the total to 164mm for the month. However, all was not lost as the summer of 1983 was the best summer since 1976 with temperatures exceeding 32C in July.