I thought it might be interesting to dig through some of the stats from back in January and February to see how they compare to this cold March so far over Europe and what I’ve found is quite incredible.

Despite longer days, stronger sun and the fact it’s outwith meteorological winter, most European cities are seeing March as the coldest month of this winter and in fact outdoing both January and February. Incredibly, for some, both January and February averaged BELOW NORMAL! This month’s bitter, relentless cold has been significantly helped by the Arctic Oscillation reaching it’s lowest March value since 1948 (1970 was lowest).

Here’s the culprits!

AO

NAO

Here are some of the most impressive stats I’ve found.

Manchester, England averaged below normal in all three meteorological winter months with December -1.0F below normal (avg temp 39.8F), January -0.7F (avg temp 38.4F) and February -2.6F (avg temp 37.2F). amazingly the first 26 days of March, has the Manchester with an average temperature of 36.9F, beating a below normal Dec, Jan and Feb. No mean feat!!.

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In London (Heathrow), January was below normal with an average temperature of 39.7F, March is marginally beating that of January with an average of 39.6F.

Although January averaged above normal in Glasgow, Scotland, both December and February was comfortably below normal at -1.9 and -1.6F below normal respectively. December averaged 38.3F while February averaged 37.8F. March so far is comfortably beating both December and February with an average of 36.8F!

Given these incredible stats for March and the continued bitter cold for the remanider, with frequent ‘disruptive snows’, including the recent blizzard which is said to be the worst in 30 years for Northern Ireland, NW England and Southwest Scotland and worst in 50 years for the Isle of Man, no wonder we’re on track to see our coldest March in half a century!

Across the North Sea and March has been equally as impressive compared to the heart of winter. In Copenhagen, Denmark, December, January and February have all averaged below normal with -3.6, -0.1, -0.7F respectively. astonishinglyMarch is outdoing them all in terms of monthly average temperature and departure from normal. March is averaging -4.9F below normal with the coldest average temperature of 30.5F.

Berlin, Germany averaged 33.1F in December which was -1.1F below normal, in January the 31.5F was a mere .2F above normal while in February the average was .6F below normal,. So overall Dec-Jan-Feb averaged around normal, March is beating all three months with an average so far of 31.1F, a full 7F below normal.

In typically frigid Helsinki, Finland, although February was warmer than normal, December was rather bitter with an average temperature of 19.6F, a full 7.5F below normal. January averaged -1.8F below normal with an average temperature of 20.2F.

Astonishingly, March so far is blowing even frigid December out of the water with an average temperature of 17.0F, some 2.6F below that of December average temp! The average of 17F puts this month a solid 8.8F BELOW NORMAL! A temperature of -9F recorded on March 14th was the coldest value for the city during March in at least 20 years.

With yet another severe winter overall across a large portion of Europe, March has averaged 3-6, locally 10F below normal from Belfast to Moscow but there are some parts where Dec, Jan or Feb was colder than March, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Oslo for example saw colder monthly average temperatures.

All stats courtesy of AccuWeather Pro.

As for the rest of March, it remains very cold with further snow showers. Nights in particular may get even colder than they have been across the UK now that skies are turning clearer and winds lighter. Look out for 08 to -12C over snow cover!

The Easter weekend continues to look largely dry but cold with the cold lingering into next week. The coldest ever low in April for the UK is -13C, not that this is ‘likely’ to fall, we may want to watch the thermometer closely early next week if we manage to see a cold high build over snow covered ground.

See last night’s post for thoughts on April and spring across the UK and Europe with a look at the Jamstec long range model.

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