Sun Chaser

A few hours of sun showing on the forecast for Monday! Praise be to the weather gods!

I certainly won't be

True. Though it wasn't especially bad either, as we had some sunny days at the start, some warmth around 15-17 March and then obviously the memorable very warm snap at the end. 1C above average here regarding max temps with around 90% of sunshine average, plus it was nice and dry as well, only 6 days with precipitation recorded! A little boring until the end but I did feel it was more springlike than this month, also following on from a week of clear blue skies and mild weather at the end of February 2021. The last "bad" March all-around was 2016... 2018 would've been one of my least favourites ever had it not given Plymouth 2 separate snow events. Considering we had zero snow settle here from January 2011 to January 2018, it was pretty exceptional.

March 2023 was a solid 2/10. Started off dry but dull, with minor cold and snow events impacting the country from around the 6th onwards but not down here. Starting in the second week, the rest of the month was infested with mild deluges with no real warmth or cold. Currently the wettest March of the century here. I can count the number of decent days on one hand (2nd, 14th, 18th and 27th) none of which were particularly warm and 2 of them even clouded over late in the day. Our highest temperature was 15.7C on the 18th, not too bad but that came with a fair bit of cloud cover Sunshine Hours: 51.6 so far (48% of average which says a lot) Rainfall: 129.2mm (195% of average, again awful) - with more to come Avg Max: 11.6C (exactly average) A pretty hideous month tbh. Especially following from such a brilliant March in 2022, with late March warmth in 2021/2020/2019 as well.

To sum up then: Rest of this week looking miserable. A couple of dry but still cloudy days at the turn of the week before a trough brings more wet weather on Tuesday. Following that, the potential for sunnier weather in the mid-teens or even high teens leading up to Easter looks like a real possibility and to be honest would be amazing to come off given how hard it has been to achieve good weather so far this spring. GFS consistently toying with the idea of a northerly in FI, potentially to come around the 12th. Nothing much would come of that so late in the season

Good luck! While you become a father in April 2023, I will be turning 18 on the 11th so some sunshine and warmth would help make the day very memorable. It's either or at the moment but at least looking dry. Hoping we can see the sun a little more in the next few weeks for both our sakes , especially after such a dull March, must be close to record dullness! You know it's bad when people who have no interest in the weather are saying it's the worst March of their entire lifetime lol

GFS op was pretty miserable but on the lower end of the pack by a mile, in fact an outlier for quite a large section. Ensembles are suggesting mid teens and dry by day 7, and even a few members show early spring heatwaves out in FI.

GFS 12z ensembles with fairly strong agreement about things settling down from day 7. Can't come soon enough. Hopefully warmth to follow!!

Despite being at over 130% of average rainfall already and still only at 30% of average sunshine, this month hasn't felt as awful as it should. We seem to be getting one sunny or warm feeling day a week which is just enough to keep me from going insane. This March has been a reality check for me as I took last year's extensive warmth and sunshine for granted, I would be moaning more but I'm glad we're getting this awful train of low pressure out the way before the warmer months. April is often my favourite month so I really hope everything settles down in time for a nice warm sunny spell in April! Yes it's been poor but I think the most notable thing is how consistently humid and damp it has been for weeks. Usually I associate March with fresh but settled weather but this has been a spell of very autumnal weather, reminiscent of October 2019 or something like that. Definitely the worst spring/summer month for me since May 2021 but, it could be worse.

2021 flashbacks

Noticing the lengthening days a lot now. Can't wait for an extra hour of light in the evenings from next Sunday! Strangely I'm seeing a lot of talk about how nature is taking longer to bloom this year but this is the first year I can remember with spring blossom coming out in February... I saw my first on the 26th and yesterday the trees at the back of my garden began to flower, even earlier than last year (which was 21st March). Not sure why it's so early considering how frosty winter was and how dull March has been but I suppose a sunny February helped?

I think I enjoyed spring 21 more than most... I appreciated the dryness of March and April even if the first half of April was cold, as we had decent temps and lots of sunshine by late April. The unseasonably warm 30-31 March spell was amazing as well. I do agree May was absolutely dismal but we were rewarded with a lovely spell of weather starting on the afternoon of 26 May. So overall 4 weeks I enjoyed, 4 weeks I didn't enjoy, and about 5 weeks in between. Not my favourite spring but there have been worse and at least it had some good variety.

Caught roughly an hour of blue skies and the temperature rose to 15.7C before it clouded over and started feeling very muggy in a way that reminded me of July 2020. But the warmer weather was very welcome and actually quite early considering it's only mid March. Unexpected and unlikely to last down here but it was nice to be able to sunbathe for an hour or two! More of the same soon please.

I think that was 2021 with a 3 day snap of warmth at the end which I very much enjoyed. 2022 saw a much longer warm spell but the temperatures reached were less extreme, with temperatures just about topping 20C. But it was a beautiful spell of wall to wall sunshine that lasted two weeks and I was loving it as much as you were My boss (I work at a restaurant on top of my studies) remarked last night how much better business was for him last March was than this March due to the weather. I seem to remember a lot of busy evenings in March 2022 but every single evening so far this month has been absolutely dead, there's no one out on the streets due to all the rain. Hopefully things improve soon!

GFS 00z ensembles really are trending much colder from day 8 with some very strong agreement... looks like it's a serious possibility to have our third cold early April in a row (and fourth in five years), almost certainly wasted at this time of year. On a positive note in all of those years things tend to have settled before mid April - last year saw warmer settled weather by the 12th, 2021 swung to clear blue skies by the 15th and 2019 gave the west some serious early spring warmth from the 19th. So there is hope not too far away. In the meantime if we do get a northerly outbreak around the 27th it certainly doesn't look too snowy.

40C would not have been possible before the last ten years or so.

It would give us weeks of high 20s to low 30s weather which would be an absolute dream!! Anything above 35C can only really be achieved with a long southerly fetch, i.e from a "heat pump" low to the west or an HP anomaly slightly to the east, which is why it tends not to last so long. July 2022 is a good example of this: 5th-16th were a beautiful spell of days with wall to wall sunshine around 27-33c that had HP directly over the UK before a low arrived from the west and pumped extreme heat from Iberia towards us and broke the heat record.

Hahaha very true!! No snow and not great for summer heat. But at least we are quite sunny down here! Now I think of it I think we had some thunder on 31st May 2018? But I'm definitely not mixing it up, perhaps 27th May 2017 storms were quite localised but god were they good. And it went on for hours!

For me this month has been quite trying but not on the level of May 2021/2015 or June/July 2012. It's so early in the season that I don't mind losing this part to poor weather as much as I know things can switch at any time and we could get a lovely spell in April or May instead. We've had less than 20 hours of sunshine this month so far which is pretty miserable but it's not too noticeable, it just feels like a standard February and that we haven't left winter yet, which is a mindset that helps I guess. It also comes on the back of a sunny and dry February which was good for my mental health, and tbh I'm now just thinking about getting this wet weather out of the way and looking forward to something better. Optimism is the way!

May was miserable, up there with 2013 and 2021 in terms of persistent coolness and the dullest in recent memory by far. June was decent; quite sunny (similar sunshine levels to June 2022) but a little on the cool side. Not particularly memorable but the only okay part of that summer July was the coolest in my entire life bar 2012. I think down in Plymouth we got the worst deal in the entire country for August as the entire month was miserable, more so than 2014, never left the high teens. August 2015 was the dullest summer month of my lifetime except June 2012. The one redeeming interesting weather event, the heat spike on 1 July 2015, we definitely missed out as we got a maximum of only 23.6C down here as well. Perhaps up country 2015 was better but for the west it was truly grim. In fact we had only one day that reached above 25C that entire summer, and not one month had an average maximum above 20C!! At least April was lovely until the final week and September was sunny. Nothing else good stands out from that year, probably my least favourite following the weather. Thankfully every year since then has at least provided us with at least a short period of weather to enjoy

2007? 2011? 2012? Or 2015 I think people forget what a horrible year that was. 2021 wasn't too bad outside of the SE. June was warm and sunny and July's 2 weeks of heat was a really lovely spell of weather. And August 2021 was far from the worst August we've had recently. Outside of that 2021 wasn't great though I agree, but not awful by any means.

As we head well into March, it got me thinking about this time of year and how varied it can often be. It's rare to have a spring that's consistently great or poor all the way through, and so people's ideas of their favourite/most hated springs differ greatly. My mind changes a lot on this but my personal opinions right now (my weather memory goes back to about 2007) Favourite: 1. 2020 - clear blue skies almost every day from 22 March onwards, lasting into early June. Never too hot but rarely too cold. The only year in my lifetime to ever reach 25C on my birthday. Also had the sunniest month on record (May 2020). Just absolute perfection, and the season as a whole got me a lot more interested in weather as it was very synoptically interesting imo. Some highlights were the 7-11 April heatwave, 17 April thunderstorms, a heatwave immediately followed by frost around 10 May, and another heatwave at the end of May with a long chain of 25C days and no cloud to be seen 2. 2011 - here mostly for that insanely summery April. What a month that was and one that's not talked about enough on here. March was quite nice as well, and May was unexceptional but at least it was dry and useable. 3. 2017 - consistently warm all the way through. We missed out on the rest of the country's warmth in March which was quite dull, but April and May, while never hot, were pleasantly warm all the way through. A nice warm sunny spell in early April and intense thunderstorms on 27 May were some of my favourite highlights. But loses out because mid May was very wet down here Least favourite: 1. 2013 - I think this is obvious. Didn't even get any snow here to make up for the bitter cold and it was the dullest spring of the 2010s by a mile. In fact it had a negative temperature anomaly of over 3C and didn't hit 20C until 31st May! Absolute nightmare of a spring 2. 2016 - Cool, wet March. April was cold and dull and there was no interesting weather at all this season until the northerly on 29 April. May ended up being quite nice with a sunny final 10 days, but nothing particularly memorable came from it either. One for the bin. 3. 2008 - Poor March followed by a cold April which I understand delivered snow widely. But not here so from a personal perspective I really disliked April 2008. Early May actually gave us a significantly warm spell of weather which I believe came close to 30C around 11 May, no mean feat for the first half of May! But the month soon became very wet with a southerly tracking jetstream and for this reason spring 2008 was almost entirely awful save for 2 weeks. Honourable mentions to 2012 and 2015. both had some great weather followed by over a month of dire, cloudy, wet gloom that really ruined the feel of the entire spring. April 2012 and May 2015 have to be some of the worst months ever. However both were preceded by sunny, warm months: so while the springs may have been okay overall, it was more of a feeling of receding back towards winter despite the lengthening days that really hit these springs hard

2013 definitely comes close but at least it wasn't especially wet, and early April was sunny. Honourable mentions to 2008 and 2016, which both lacked any warmth but also any real interesting weather (in these parts at least). Had I been old enough to notice the weather in 2001, I would've absolutely hated that spring. May looks like it was decent though.

Some remarkably warm outliers on the GFS 12z from around day 9 or 10. Every fibre of my being is hoping one of them comes off. In reality though, things look to be trending slightly cooler (and still wet) for the final week of March. I know this is deep into FI but when the outlook is as dismal as it is currently, this is all we can do. I suppose this is the definition of "payback weather" (if it exists) for such a dry second half of winter. In fact the mean, for such a long way out, suggests some very strong ensemble agreement on a trough to the west in around 10 days. After that less so, perhaps there is an opportunity for things to dry out following the 25th, but that's so far out that any kind of analysis would be hopecasting. You know things are bad when you're relying on the CFS for any kind of interesting or enjoyable weather

We definitely could do with something a little more balanced I guess given any potential drought issues! And I certainly don't want a repeat of what was going on in the world in spring 2020 either lol. But despite that I have some good memories of admiring the weather and stopping to sunbathe on my daily walks for weeks on end. I distinctly remember having one beautiful day on 16 March 2020, then a week of constant low cloud stuck under high pressure before things really changed a week later