[b]Headline: Welcome rain, with hill snow possible Tuesday. Cool, sharp frosts mid to late week, mostly dry. Unsettled Easter[/b]

Quite a week just gone, with Winter and Summer in a day, from scraping the ice off to sunbathing a few hours later. Hard to better for prolonged warmth and sunshine in March, even if the Welsh and English records remained in tact. Most of us saw 20 or 21c; with Llanwnnen having 4 consecutive days above 20c, while Coventry had it's warmest March day since 1965. For a bit of perspective the average maximum temperature for the end of March is just 11 or 12c. This weekend has seen temperatures returning to more typical Spring values.

March was very mild and dry, Llanwnnen had just 24mm , slightly less than Rugby's 25mm, an unusual occurrence, given that Ceredigion is twice as wet as Warwickshire on average. Only small amounts of rain in the coming week it would seem, with the emphasis being on cool, mostly dry and bright weather, with some late sharp frosts for gardeners to beware of.


Monday starts off frosty, then is mostly dry and bright, but eventually clouding over during the afternoon. A trough moving down from the north is developing a low pressure system along it, which brings a little rain in places during the evening and overnight. Temperatures fairly mild for early April at 13c or so.
As this low passes away south-east on Tuesday much colder north-east winds blow in, so that during the afternoon the spells of rain will turn to sleet or snow over the hills, with just a slight chance of a little wet snow for a short while to lower levels too. This should all clear away by evening, but a very cool, raw day with the fresh north-east wind restricting maxima to just 6- 8c.
[attachment=132665:brack1 low developing Mon night.gif] [attachment=132666:brack1a cold air follows low hill snow Tue.gif] [attachment=132667:Rtavn602 hill snow likey Tue.png] [attachment=132668:Rtavn664 turning wintry Tue aft.png]

From Wednesday a high pressure gradually sinks down just to our west, with cool air ridging east over the UK, so that the rest of the week looks dry, with plenty of sunshine, but cool with the general northerly flow. Some hard frosts for April between Wednesday and Friday, widely down to -3c. and as low as -7c for inland parts of west Wales especially, so some damaging frosts after the early spurt of growth. Cool by day too in spite of the sunshine, temperatures struggling to reach 10c.
[attachment=132669:Recm962 V cool bright frosts mid week.gif] [attachment=132670:Rtavn1082 cool ridge Thu.png]

It looks as though another trough of low pressure will move down from the north-west late Friday into Saturday, but probably tracking to our east. Uncertainty then here, but there could be some further rain especially for the Midlands by Friday night, with west Wales likely to stay mostly dry. Less cool by this stage too, and we lose the air frosts.
[attachment=132671:Rtavn1381 Tr to east late Fri.png]

A rather unsettled look to the Easter period with a much more westerly spell setting in for Sunday and Monday bringing weather fronts swiftly across the country along with some spells of rain at times, but drier brighter interludes between. Breezy and temperatures only average at best.
[attachment=132672:Recm1922 UNsettled Easter.gif] [attachment=132673:Rtavn2041 Unsettled rain EM.png]