April 2024 - Was it that cold overall? A look at the statistics

April is one of those tricky months of the year when you have to decide what to wear and whether to put away those winter clothes yet. There are swings between spring warmth and winter cold. This year's April has been no exception, with a generally warm first half and chilly second half. 

April 2024 was a month of two halves, with a warm fortnight in the first half that pushed the rolling 1991-2020 average Central England Temperature (CET) some 3C above average for a time, followed by colder weather, which brought colder than average temperatures for the last 2 weeks of the month bringing the average back down. However, many may have forgotten the warmer-than-average weather we had earlier in the month. The maximum temperature last month was 21.8C in Writtle, Essex, on the 13th, though this is probably easily forgotten given the last few weeks felt cold.

Perhaps because it was wet earlier in the month and cool and grey most of the second half of the month, resulting in a duller-than-average month, people’s perceptions have been heavily swayed by the dullness and chilliness. So, April was widely perceived as a ‘cold’ month despite statistics to the contrary.

The unseasonably cold weather during the second half of the month dominated conversation about the weather on social media. This colder weather concreted people’s perception of the weather for last month. The Met Office commented on it being a warmer-than-average month, which it was, but this was met with some derision on social media. The first half of April was, in fact, warmer than the UK average, so much so that, despite the cold second half, the month will still end up above average, though depending on which 30-year average period you use, not necessarily by a large margin. 

Below are the 1991-2020 average period (left) and the 1961-1990 average period (right) showing how our rapidly-warming climate skews perceptions, this April against the ’61-’90 period looks much warmer than the ’91-’20 average.

Source: Met Office 

April’s provisional average mean temperature for the UK was 8.3°C, 0.4°C higher above the 1991-2020 long-term average. But according to the Central England Temperature (CET), the longest-running series of monthly temperature observations in existence, the provisional mean April average was 9.6C, 1.7C above the 1961-1990 standard period. Though the 30 year period 1961-1990 was cooler than the current 1991-2020 period.

Source: Starling Roost Weather

The Hadley mean CET for the opening 8 days of April was +3.4°C above the 1991-2020 period, nights earlier in the month were particularly anomalously warm, the min CET being near +4°C above, while the max CET was near +3°C.

Despite this, a lack of sunshine and persistent rain may have contributed to it feeling colder than expected in April month. It was quite a dull month – duller than average, the UK provisionally recorded 79% of the long-term average sunshine duration, with 122.9 hours. So, the lack of sunshine probably impacts what people feel about the weather as well. So people may have felt that it was colder than expected for April, despite overall average temperatures this month suggesting otherwise. 

It was also another wet month. In a succession of wet months, the UK experienced 55% more rainfall than an average April, with 111.4mm falling across the month, making it the sixth wettest April in the series and the wettest April since 2012.

Source: Met Office

Many areas recorded more than their long-term average monthly rainfall, with Scotland experiencing its fourth wettest April.

However, the British public can be hard to sway, and some may not be interested in anomalies and averages to determine how the weather has felt to them during April. It doesn’t matter what the statistics say; cloud, drizzle, chilly temperatures, and a distinct absence of sunshine will form the basis of many people’s perception of how it’s been this month, not the long-forgotten warm days and nights earlier in the month.