by Philip Eden

There has been no colder April, averaged nationally, since 1989, although that of 1998 was equally as cold. The mean Central England temperature of 7.7°C was 0.4°C below the average for 1971-2000; during the last 100 years 35 Aprils were colder, 61 were warmer, and 4 the same. Three of the first four months of 2001 have reported below-normal mean temperature making this the coldest start to the year since 1996. There was only one day which could remotely be described as warm, April 2nd, and even then the warmth was confined to eastern counties of England; that afternoon 22°C was recorded in central London. There were several cold nights with widespread frost even in southern England, and the month's lowest temperature of -7°C was logged at Altnaharra in Sutherland on the morning of the 13th.

April was yet another wet month: much of the southern half of the UK has now endured eight consecutive months with well above average rainfall. It was also the fourth successive wetter-than-average April though nothing like as wet as April 2000. Averaged over England and Wales the monthly rainfall was 94mm which is 65% above the long-term mean. (For comparison, last April's figure was 143mm). In the last 100 years there have been only nine wetter Aprils. Several places in England and Wales reported 200% or more and Scarborough's total was 240%. By contrast northern and western Scotland once again escaped the heavy rain, and at Tiree in the Inner Hebrides the total rainfall of 32mm was just 54% of the long-term average.

There was a marked shortage of April sunshine for the third time in four years; the average over England and Wales was 141 hours which is just 89% of the normal - but last April was duller. Manchester was the gloomiest place in the country, the total there of 87 hours being just 61% of the local average. A few isolated localities had more sunshine than usual, and Aberdeen's total of 171 hours was 16% above the normal April figure there.