March has been a tale of two halves with cold first half followed by mild second and drastically different compared to February in the rainfall department.

The precipitation anomaly between February and March is the complete opposite, temperature-wise, it looks to fall a fraction BELOW AVERAGE compared to the warm February.

February 2023

February 2023 in the UK had an average temperature of 5.8C, +1.7C above normal.
Average rainfall was 43.4mm,only 45% of normal
Extremely dry in England.
Winter as a whole had an average temperature of 4.3C, +0.2C above normal with average precipitations of 280mm, 19% below normal pic.twitter.com/CuEBFb4j9n

— Extreme Temperatures Around The World (@extremetemps) March 9, 2023

March 2023

While some observed less than 20% of normal rainfall in Feb, March delivered widely over 200% normal rainfall.

Cambridge has observed more rainfall during the first 27 days days of March than December through February combined.

It’s been the wettest March in 22 years for parts of London.

There's been precipitation on each of the last 22 days, making it the wettest March since 2001 here. A ridge should give some respite over the next 24 hours. pic.twitter.com/WYC6vUiyW3

— Wanstead weather (@wanstead_meteo) March 26, 2023

MET OFFICE: Wettest March in over 40 years for England and Wales

Comparing March 2023 with others

Even the coldest openings to a March (2001, 2013, 2018, 2021, 2023), are more often than not followed by a milder 2nd half due to the natural strengthening of sun and increased hours of daylight etc but there are exceptions such as 2013 and 2018 which stayed cold almost throughout. The big cold Marches all came following a major SSW with effects this year, less severe or long lasting as previous with snow chaos much more localised and somewhat less problematic compared to 2013 and 2018 in particular.

Photos from past Marches following a major SSW.

All images (except 2023) followed blizzard conditions which closed roads widely…

2013

2018

2023

The standout with regards to 2023 was the run of exceptionally cold nights, particularly in the far north.

COLD run of morning's up in Sutherland you don't see often even in JANUARY never mind March!

8th -15.4C Kinbrace
9th -16.0 Altnaharra
10th -13.6 Altnaharra
11th -15.7 Altnaharra

Another -10 or below tonight?

Who wrote off winter during the mid February? pic.twitter.com/wCEaiXGvKa

— MarkVoganWeather.com (@MarkVogan) March 11, 2023

As for cold maximums, Altnaharra, Sutherland only managed a high of -2.4C followed by a high of -2.3C on the 9th. An ‘ice day’ was achieved as far south as Sennybridge, Powys on the 8th and -0.3C and Leed-Bradford Airport in Yorkshire on the 9th with a high of only -0.2C.

Fixed a bug in my #CET retrieval code, so now the estimate of monthly CET and CET anomalies for the current month are correct.

Did you know the daily mean CET on March 8th this year, was the lowest March 8th value since 1970?https://t.co/FuxkTLMU5W pic.twitter.com/Zpv1R4bMao

— Dan Harris (@RoostWeather) March 13, 2023

This morning's low of 0.4°C here at the house was the first to not drop below freezing in 13 days! #Evanton pic.twitter.com/M0UgDSQRhc

— MarkVoganWeather.com (@MarkVogan) March 16, 2023

A9 just below Drumochter. pic.twitter.com/9WwUwestmB

— MarkVoganWeather.com (@MarkVogan) March 15, 2023

That -8.4°C Baltasound is remarkable for March. Only March 2001 (-8.8°C) saw a lower reading at the airport.

Like 2001 this also beats the previous low from the old village site from March 1924 (-8.3°C) which had a POR from 1914-1995. https://t.co/kadPcz5roV

— HarryW ???? (@Harry_Hardrada) March 13, 2023

Then came the warm-up.

Power of the mid March ???? pic.twitter.com/Z33FAFHiFk

— MarkVoganWeather.com (@MarkVogan) March 14, 2023

A brief cold shot between 26-28th March observed a day of highs 3 to 5C (nothing unusual) accompanied by sea level snow showers. Those showers brought temporary accumulations with height in the north and a low of -9C at Tulloch Bridge (Fersit) on the 27th and -6.6C at Altnaharra on the 28th.

The below graphic provided by the Met Office is the UK temperature anomaly for March 2021 and 2023 will wind up similar with cold start, warm end. 2021 wound up slightly above average, likely slightly below in 2023.

2013 and 2018 are exceptions but like 2023, they followed a major SSW event.

Interestingly March 2022 was warmer, drier and sunnier than normal for the UK followed by a cold April. Though March not as warm as March 2012.

MARCH WEATHER STATS

☀️Sunniest March on record for Scotland
☀️Sunniest March on record for N. Ireland
☀️2nd sunniest March on record for UK
????️ Mean temperature 1C above average
☔️Dry with rainfall 58% of average
⬆️Highest temperature 20.8C
⬇️Lowest temperature -9.1C pic.twitter.com/vuSNmkWVlf

— Liam Dutton (@liamdutton) April 1, 2022

Back to this year and Globally, March 2023 has been a warm.

For Europe, it’s been a warm south, cold north with very cold opening 10 days for the UK and near continent.

Anomaly 1-20th

1-31st

The last 10 days has really eaten away at the cold anomaly for both UK/Ireland and near continent but it looks like according to the CDAS data, Scotland will have seen a colder-than-average month while England, Wales and Ireland (including NI) around average.

Out like a lion!

Named by Meteo France, Storm Mathis brought a stormy and unsurprisingly wet end to the month in the south with worst winds through the channel and northern France!

https://twitter.com/metoffice/status/1641788865844224001/video/1

March also ended with extreme cold in Scandinavia of -37C (coldest so late in the season for many years) while record warmth in the +30s affected Iberia with several places in Spain, Portugal and even Morocco witnessing their hottest March days.

Drier April?

The effects of the mid Feb SSW lives on with periodic returns to blocking as explained nicely in the below tweets and has been thoroughly discussed on my Youtube channel.

The mid-February sudden stratospheric warming was 6 weeks ago, but models arguably show episodic tropospheric impacts continuing for another 4-6 weeks.

1989 and 2013 saw much-delayed major blocking episodes during spring, many weeks after the SSW event. pic.twitter.com/Pxfzc62LRK

— World Climate Service (@WorldClimateSvc) March 31, 2023

Signs are, atmospheric anomalies relating to the mid-Feb SSW event will propagate down one more time during 1st half April.

The result: yet another round of blocking high pressure around Greenland. Again with W US trough, SE ridge.

Europe maybe more settled in NW this time. pic.twitter.com/QErmPgWhPG

— James Peacock (@peacockreports) March 27, 2023

I made mention all the way in mid-February as the major SSW was occurring that the effects on the hemispheric pattern could linger (off and on) all the way through April.

While the effects may have been quite impressive with the level of cold observed in the far north of the UK especially, the response wasn’t as extreme as 2013 or 2018 when taking into account severity of cold and snow across a wide area or more so, longevity of the cold which in 2013 and 2018 lingered longer than 2021 or 2023. Nonetheless the effects live on. Probably the most notable ‘current’ lasting effects can be seen with the tremendous cold observed over Scandinavia as well as the displaced jet stream and very wet March for the UK as well central Europe.

With further blocking set to re-establish towards the north in early April, this points to near average temperature but most notably, a drier theme for the UK with wettest conditions transferring into the central and eastern Europe.

The CFSv2 shows nicely the northward building on the block week 1 into 2 of April.

As a consequence, a drier than normal pattern develops.

Temperature-wise through the first half of April, It depends on position and strength of the mean ridge position. There’s likely to be some variability in position and so we could see a mix of milder and colder intrusions. Overall I believe Scandinavia shall moderate from it’s current cold pattern and Europe including the SOUTHERN UK cools.

Underneath HP and if skies remain clear, winds light, we are likely to see some big diurnal temperature swings such as 16-18C by day, 0 to -5C by night over Scotland, N England for example. Classic for the time of year under such conditions of course.

Week 1-2 temp anomalies…  Average to above average Scotland, average to below average England, Wales and Ireland and a cooling trend for Iberia which has been very warm of late.

The second half of April is a tougher call but I suspect a shift to milder and possibly wetter with return of the Atlantic.

The month as a whole, a wetter month compared to normal for central, southern Europe including Iberia and drier further north.

Near average temperature for UK, Ireland, cooler south, warmer north.

CFSv2 for April.

Despite expected ‘below average rainfall’ and near average temperature anomaly, I suspect a late April ‘warm spell’ which brings the first UK, possibly Ireland ‘low 20s’ of the year is likely between April 20-30th.

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