March CET

[Calrissian]

oh well, how can it so late. sigh.

6.7

hmm

[The Calm before the Storm]

Late again! Never mind, I'll go for 6.4c please.

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

Average of alll entries = 6.48

[SNOW-MAN2006]

Going for 7, cold start turning milder and unsettled

[eddie]

The Hadley stats are in for the first day of March giving a well above average start: 8.6C. (Min 6.7C, Max 11.5C)

[Scorcher]

That's after virtually everyone predicted a cold start! There will be a couple of days of below average temperatures but it looks like it will be turning milder midweek, I'm not sure this start will be enough to produce the average-below average March that a large number of people have predicted!

[Snowly does it]

That's after virtually everyone predicted a cold start! There will be a couple of days of below average temperatures but it looks like it will be turning milder midweek, I'm not sure this start will be enough to produce the average-below average March that a large number of people have predicted!

Still, early days yet

[kold weather]

Yeah but the first day was always going to be mild, its after today the breif cool down will happen. Still yesterdays CET daily value will probably be matched by Thursday. Looking like the pattern would result in a CET of 0.5-1C above normal if it continued like this but odds are it won't stay the same all month!

[Roger J Smith]

I predict there will be 31 days, tying this month for the record highest number of days. If you change the clocks it will also be tied for the record number of hours (745).

[Mesosphere]

i'll have a go at 5.5C

[❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️]

I predict there will be 31 days, tying this month for the record highest number of days. If you change the clocks it will also be tied for the record number of hours (745).

Only thanks to Global Warming

[Stargazer]

And February 2008 had the greatest number of daily maxima and minima reported since 2004. Amazing!

[Stratos Ferric]

That's after virtually everyone predicted a cold start! There will be a couple of days of below average temperatures but it looks like it will be turning milder midweek, I'm not sure this start will be enough to produce the average-below average March that a large number of people have predicted!

El Scorchio, I think that pretty much any winter month will produce a preponderance of competitors punting below par: that is the average N-W mindset, and there will always be an element of hopecasting going on. I haven't checked back through all the old stats but would lay very short odds on that being the case.

March looks like being changeable, certainly for the first half, but a cold month requires sustained cold: bouncing between warm and cool is, all other things being equal, going to produce an outcome close to par. Still too early to read anything at all into the likely outcome, though history suggests that it will be in a window around -1.5 to + 2C around recent mean.

[eddie]

Hadley has updated after a slight glitch yesterday. The CET is now 7.5C. Yesterday was 5.0C and Monday was 9.1C.

[reef]

What is even more telling however is that at this point in the month, a CET of 7.5C is actually 3.1C above the running average. This is despite the apparent "cold" start to the month.

As SF mentions, the outlook looks changeable, but I think we'll be above average by the midpoint, as it looks like the mild is going to be milder than the cold is cold.

[Stratos Ferric]

What is even more telling however is that at this point in the month, a CET of 7.5C is actually 3.1C above the running average. This is despite the apparent "cold" start to the month.

As SF mentions, the outlook looks changeable, but I think we'll be above average by the midpoint, as it looks like the mild is going to be milder than the cold is cold.

...and therein lies a very succinct summary of the modern climatic malaise if you happen to favour cold weather.

Can anyone remember when we last had widespread snow from a single frontal event.

[kold weather]

i think the Feb 07 event was widespread enough to fit that bracket BUT then again even that was a sort of staged set-up with several fronts giving most of the country snow but barring that I think you have to go back to maybe March 05 or maybe evn Jan 04...but even those systems locally failed to give the goods.

anyway i think we are still going to end up around 0.5-1C above normal, I think there probably will be a few colder shots like this one which will prevent a much above normal but equally as Reef has said I think the milder spells will be more potent then the cold set-ups.

Edited March 4, 2008 by kold weather

[The PIT]

...and therein lies a very succinct summary of the modern climatic malaise if you happen to favour cold weather.

Can anyone remember when we last had widespread snow from a single frontal event.

Nope I remember plenty of forecasts for frontal snow which hasn't delivered. I think Feb 2007 was the best of recent attempts but that produced Snow that melted as fast it fell here so we had a dusting all day. Otherwise the best description you can give to Frontal Snow is Frontal No.

[Eugene]

Actually tonights air frost will have the biggest deviation from average in the next week so the cold is colder than the mild is mild.

Edited March 4, 2008 by Eugene

[reef]

Believe it or not, the average minima around now is nearly the coldest of the year. A look on the Hadley CET site shows the expected rolling average minima for this point in the month is a lowly 1.2C. Therefore even a frost of say -3C in the CET zone is only equivilent to a minima of 5.4C, a number that will probably quite easily exceeded in a tropical maritime flow.

This is why February's minima ended up close to average despite the numerous hard frosts (some below -5C in the entire CET zone).

[Thundery wintry showers]

...and therein lies a very succinct summary of the modern climatic malaise if you happen to favour cold weather.

Can anyone remember when we last had widespread snow from a single frontal event.

As others have stated, early Feb 2007 was a candidate but featured a succession of fronts. I think 12 March 2006 is perhaps the most recent example, which blanketed much of western Britain in particular.

I've been staggered by how feeble this winter's northerlies have been- more so than last winter's, despite the SSTs around the UK being less anomalously high. A cold snap of this intensity, with these synoptics, wouldn't have looked out of place in early to mid April 10-20 years ago, just as the early February burst wouldn't have looked out of place in late March or early April.

What's particularly odd is that this doesn't seem to have been the case during the winter of 2005/06, when we had northerlies around 25-28 November, 16 December, 1-6 March and 1-10 April which brought similar temperatures to what I'd have expected the same synoptics to bring 10-20 years ago.

As for the mild being milder than the cold is cold, I think that's to be expected, on average, in a climate that is warmer than it used to be.

[Weather-history]

What is even more telling however is that at this point in the month, a CET of 7.5C is actually 3.1C above the running average. This is despite the apparent "cold" start to the month.

First two days of March were mild, yesterday was cooler. It was never a cold start to March to begin with not after three days.

[Stu_London]

For a cold March, I would suggest that the predominate air flow be NW to N, with a series of topplers.

Any sustained High Pressure would see daytime maxima more than offsetting the nighttime minima - the high pressure in mid Feb was almost CET neutral, it was only the last few days where some colder upper air allowed minimas to really drop and fog to be an issue.

[damianslaw]

As others have stated, early Feb 2007 was a candidate but featured a succession of fronts. I think 12 March 2006 is perhaps the most recent example, which blanketed much of western Britain in particular.

I've been staggered by how feeble this winter's northerlies have been- more so than last winter's, despite the SSTs around the UK being less anomalously high. A cold snap of this intensity, with these synoptics, wouldn't have looked out of place in early to mid April 10-20 years ago, just as the early February burst wouldn't have looked out of place in late March or early April.

What's particularly odd is that this doesn't seem to have been the case during the winter of 2005/06, when we had northerlies around 25-28 November, 16 December, 1-6 March and 1-10 April which brought similar temperatures to what I'd have expected the same synoptics to bring 10-20 years ago.

As for the mild being milder than the cold is cold, I think that's to be expected, on average, in a climate that is warmer than it used to be.

The problem with the 'northerlies' we have had this year (today included) is unlike those you mentioned in the winter of 2005/06 they have just not had a long enough hold i.e. all been less than 24 hours and therefore the cold air has never had time to develop sufficiently, also they have not been true northerlies from the arctic, or been preceeded by cold surface temperatures.

[Thundery wintry showers]

You have a decent point there- taking a closer look at where the air came from, there was a lot of mixing just to our N from Atlantic lows, and the real Arctic airmass sourced north of 70N only ended up clipping the NE of Scotland.

I reckon that if this cold snap had happened 20 years ago we might have ended up 1-2C cooler, but even in that case, at most, we'd have been talking a brief overnight snow event for some that disappeared rapidly in maxima of 5-7C the next day. As you rightly say, too short-lived, therefore not enough time for cold air to establish, the same was also the case with 1-2 Feb this year.