Moans, ramps and banter

[Catbrainz]

Today is a great weather day. Theres no rain and the clouds are light grey rather than dark grey. I know normally a pretty meh day but a bright cloudy day with no rain feels like heaven after weeks of neverending rain!

[cheeky_monkey]

 danm look at the sheet i have to put up with ..no sign of spring here 

[In Absence of True Seasons]

 Catbrainz Regional. Enjoy the dryness! Pouring nearly all day here...

 cheeky_monkey I would honestly rather have that than the endless rainy, cloudy dull days that have plagued the last 3 / 4 months in the UK. 

[cheeky_monkey]

 In Absence of True Seasons sums up my winter 

[Summer8906]

So February, with around 1.5 hours of daylight left in the month, is proving dull and wet to the very, very end.

Another very prolonged rainband, it started raining around 1100-1200 yesterday and while there have been some drier interludes, there's been no proper clearance. Prolonged spells of almost-continuous rain lasting 24 hours or more due to slow-moving systems has been a defining feature of the month. While extremely mild and Atlantic dominated, it hasn't been fast moving zonality - if it had, the sunshine totals would be better and it would have been colder and drier, I suspect!

I sincerely hope we do not have a repeat of February 2024 any time soon. The third historically poor month in the past 12, the others of course being last March and July.

Edited February 29 by Summer8906

[danm]

 In Absence of True Seasons would you believe it if I told you that despite our perceptions of 2023 and where has seen the most rain, our part of the country was still the driest?

….and the sunniest?

Edited February 29 by danm

[Catbrainz]

 cheeky_monkey Bad timing with todays rainband my eastern counterpart. We had your rain yesterday it seems it was awful yesterday :P. 

[SLEETY]

colder march than feb just gone coming up,not a surprise,here comes the HLB once Winter ends again/

[Metwatch]

4 hours ago, B87 said:

Typically the warmest day of the month will be around 17-18c, but 15c isn't uncommon, especially after mid-month.

To further back that up, looking through Church Lawford, Warwickshire data since 2009, only 4 out of 15 March's failed to reach 15C which are:

2009: 14.8C

2013: 14.0C

2016: 14.3C

2018: 13.3C

However when the benchmark is set to 17C, then 10 out of 15 failed to reach that in total which are all the above plus:

2010: 16.5C

2011: 16.9C

2015: 16.3C

2019: 15.9C

2020: 15.7C

2023: 15.5C

So a rough estimate for average highest March temperature is the ballpark of 16-17C.

 

The max temperature this month was 16.6C at the same station. Wonder if March can have a lower one. Doesn't seem to happen very frequently, only examples are 2019 and 2023 since 2009, and even 2023 was almost identical.

Edited February 29 by Metwatch

[B87]

 Metwatch March max temps for here, since 2009:

2009: 16.6c

2010: 17.5c

2011: 18.8c

2012: 22.8c

2013: 16.1c

2014: 19.8c

2015: 16.0c

2016: 15.1c

2017: 21.7c

2018: 15.4c

2019: 19.1c

2020: 15.6c

2021: 23.8c

2022: 19.9c

2023: 16.5c

Average: 18.3c

Edited February 29 by B87

[Arctic Hare]

The sun is pretty strong by mid-March, though, and that means that when it's out 15 °C feels a lot warmer than it does in December, even though it's more unusual in Dec.

[CryoraptorA303]

 SLEETY Nah, the Scandi high is way too eastwards and boxed in by Atlantic garbage to deliver anything much colder than seasonal averages. If anything at all, March will be a very climatically boring month but likely considerably drier than what we've seen over much of the last 12 months.

This Scandi high setup will likely not be all that long-lived anyway as the upcoming predicted SSW will probably lead to some instability and a regime change. We might be looking at a period of unsettlement in the second half of March but it will probably be restricted to about a week and I suspect a lot of it will be confined to the north this time, and the south will see one of the most benign months in some time.

April is anyone's guess, it depends what happens in March as it is among the most turbulent months of the year after all.

 danm Not really a secret that the East Anglia climate region received the least amount of rainfall last year, as it almost always does. It's just that those in the north and west are much more acclimatised to seeing heavy rainfall for prolonged periods and don't complain about it as much. Here in the east people are more acclimatised to seeing what are in all fairness quite prolonged periods without heavy or even moderate rainfall for at least a few months of the year and when we do see heavy rain it's normally in the October-January bracket. Last year we saw heavy rainfall in March and July, the two months where it's generally the least plausible, and we also then saw two major storms recurve right into East Anglia in late October-early November, so this is very unusual to us easterners. Those further west and north simply saw more heavy rainfall than usual. A year like 2023 with so much rainfall seems to happen about once every 10-15 years.

 

The average maximum for March at Heathrow from 2003-2023 is 18.8°C, so we can assume that 50% of years will be below and 50% of years will be above. We can also assume that around 1/3 of Marches will reach 20°C on at least one day.

15°C isn't a hard temperature to reach in February these days, let alone March. Even last March which was more like your average 2020s February saw 15°C on multiple days. By 2013-2033 we will probably be seeing an average maximum of around 19.5°C and about 70% of Marches reaching 20°C at Heathrow. It may have once been quite uncommon, perhaps occuring once every seven years or so, but now it's not very exceptional. However it depends on the synoptics on offer, March is an extremely turbulent month after all.

[SunnyG]

 cheeky_monkeyPoor you 

[CryoraptorA303]

 Arctic Hare Indeed, by late February, if the air is completely windstill and the Sun is unabated I can generally go out in a shirt from 10-11°C. Late March 2020 comes to mind. 15°C in those conditions starts to feel outright warm.

[danm]

15 minutes ago, CryoraptorA303 said:

Not really a secret that the East Anglia climate region received the least amount of rainfall last year, as it almost always does. It's just that those in the north and west are much more acclimatised to seeing heavy rainfall for prolonged periods and don't complain about it as much. Here in the east people are more acclimatised to seeing what are in all fairness quite prolonged periods without heavy or even moderate rainfall

I agree, I also live in an area of the country that is less acclimatised to this much rainfall. My post was more to push back on those implying that the SE has seen more rainfall than areas further north and west over the last year. 

Edited February 29 by danm

[Methuselah]

Please don't laugh, but we have a Beast from the East incoming! You read it first, here. . . 

[Metwatch]

19 minutes ago, Methuselah said:

Please don't laugh, but we have a Beast from the East incoming! You read it first, here.

Considering Tamara and Matt have been quiet and Met4cast hasn't even gone for anything particularly cold, something not far off to that might just happen, opposite to the winter just gone   ECM 12z's mouth watering chart for those wanting cold is too far out to take much notice at the moment anyways.

Edited February 29 by Metwatch

[danm]

 Methuselah I bloody hope not. It’s too late. 

[Methuselah]

 Metwatch Thankfully, the Met's opinion is not nearly as dire. 

[markyo]

On 23/02/2024 at 22:36, SunnyG said:

Just out of curiosity, when are the mod people gonna stop chasing that cold spell? Do they have a cut off time or do they go on indefinitely?

I rest my case, the chase is still on, i'll be trans Pennie friday for work, snow will be a feature, its never over, just like those seeking heat,you chase that rainbow. Nothing to do with the mods is it?

Edited February 29 by markyo

[raz.org.rain]

 Methuselah seeing how the previous three months have gone I wouldn't be surprised if we see our earliest 30°c on record instead

[BlueSkies_do_I_see]

I remember March 23rd 2013. We had 5 foot snow drifts on some stretches of the lane near my parents' house in rural Leicestershire.

Widespread snow March 2013

WWW.METOFFICE.GOV.UK

---

In March 2013 an active weather fronts moving in from the Atlantic brought heavy rain and flooding to south-western parts of the...

 

Edited February 29 by BlueSkies_do_I_see

[Methuselah]

And, seeing as so many folks are obsessed with calendar months. . . 

 

[Don]

 raz.org.rain And 38C in June, 42C in July and 45C in August!!  Imagine if that happened this year?!   

What's really concerning is that it's probably feasible now! 

1 hour ago, Metwatch said:

ECM 12z's mouth watering chart for those wanting cold is too far out to take much notice at the moment anyways.

What's new there?! 

[raz.org.rain]

 Don with the abnormal global bias for warm anomalies I'd say there's a higher likelihood of that happening then there otherwise would be.