WEATHER WATCHING Wet month of April saw rain falling on 16 days
APRIL 2023 was a very wet month with temperatures close to average with sunshine totals around normal too.
Indeed April 2023 was the 4th wettest month in my records in Mountsorrel that go back 21 years.
The wettest in the series was in 2012 when I logged 114mm, then came 2004 at 85mm, 2018 with 84mm then 2023 at 78mm.
Dean Whittaker at his Hinckley station recorded 82mm. Rain fell on 16 days of the month with the wettest day in Hinckley being the 14th when 20mm fell while at Mountsorrel mine was the 23rd when 17mm fell.
The combined March and April in Mountsorrel was 206mm with 128mm falling in March too so spring has certainly been very wet so far!
People’s perception of the April was that it was a very cool month but in reality temperatures were fairly close to the long term average. Recent Aprils have seen some warm and sunny spells but none materialized this month with our max temp of 18.8c reached in Hinckley on the 29th.
Average daytime maximums were logged at 13.2c with our night time temperatures averaging 4.5c. There were just 2 night time air frosts recorded with our lowest temperature being -1.3c.
The overall mean of 8.9c was 0.4c lower than normal but April 2021 was a very cool 6.7c while April 2020 had an average of 11c so it goes to show how varied the weather can be in this month.
The average temperature for April continues to creep up as with all the other months with the current 9.5c being 1.3c higher than it was before the millennium.
Steve Jackson at his Bablake school website recorded 160 hours of sun which was average for April with our sunniest day being logged on the 4th when 12 hours was recorded.
Looking at the month as a whole it started off cool and bright with nearly 30 hours of sunshine in the first 4 days. The middle part of the month was very wet with 35mm of rain falling between 10th and 14th as storm Noa passed close by with a maximum wind gust of 38mph.
There was another wet spell between the 21stt and 23rd when another 28mm fell but some warmer air did reach us on the 29th when 18.8c was recorded.
So in peoples perceptions a poor month but one in reality not too far from average but a lack of any prolonged warm spell made it feel cool and it was very wet.
Lets hope summer arrives in May. Thanks to Dean and Steve for the use of their station data