what about this frickin weather?

Today and yesterday were fine; Monday it poured down steadily throughout the day. About right for early May, I guess. But the spring was anything but normal. March, which is supposed to come in like a lion and go out like a lamb, though in my experience tends more to come in like a lion and go out like a drowned rat, was the driest and warmest seen in Britain for over a hundred years. There were many days which were indistinguishable from summer except that it got dark quicker.
April, by stark contrast is supposed to be the driest of the year, apart from July, but this year it was one of the wettest (and coolest)ever.

What's going on? Turns out, it's that pesky jetstream again. In March, the jetstream stayed north of the British Isles, allowing a huge bubble of warm air to remain "blocked" as the meteorologists say. Good thing there wasn't an Icelandic volcano erupting, for these were the conditions last year that swept all the ash down into northern Europe and scuppered air travel for many days. Then in April it swung south and brought all the Atlantic depressions homing in to the lower half of Britain, where they gratefully discharged their millions of tons of water.

Our summers depend on this fickle phenomenon. In the "right" place, and that isn't very often, we get a dream summer. In the "wrong" (that is to say, the normal) place, it's a washout...