Fri 02 Apr
March lookback
Dry in the east

By Philip Eden

The main features of the month were:

- Snow in many areas on the 11th/12th
- Widespread hail and sleet showers third week
- Cloudy in the Midlands/Southeast, sunny in Scotland/N.Ireland
- Warm on 31st with highs approaching 20ºC

The first half of the month was generally rather cold, the third week was very mild, the fourth week again rather cold, and the last few days were warm. All these episodes cancelled each other out, so that the Central England Temperature (CET) for March 2004 was 6.6°C which is just 0.2 degC above the mean for the standard reference period 1971-2000. In the last 100 years, 70 Marches were colder, two had the same monthly temperature, and just 28 were warmer. However, 12 of the last 15 Marches have been warmer.

Warmest days were the 16th when 19.0ºC was reached at Worcester, and the 31st when 20.1ºC was logged at RAF Northolt in northwest London, but such levels of warmth are not unusual in March. There were several severe frosts at the beginning of the month, and on the morning of the 2nd a minimum of –12.0ºC was registered at Aboyne in Aberdeenshire.

Rainfall averaged over England and Wales, was 53mm which is 73 per cent of the average for the standard reference period 1971-2000, but the Marches of 2003 and 2002 were both somewhat drier. In the last 100 years 39 Marches were drier and 61 were wetter. In the main population centres in Scotland the total for March 2004 was 48mm which is 84 per cent of the normal, whereas the Northern Ireland total of 54mm is 80 per cent of the average.

At a more local level, western and southern Scotland, Northumberland and Cumbria, and a few sites in north Wales and Northern Ireland were wetter than average. By contrast the coastal fringe of the inner Moray Firth, Merseyside and northeast Wales, much of the east Midlands and Lincolnshire, parts of Essex, Kent and Sussex, and some stations in the Channel Islands all had slightly less than half the normal amount. Monthly totals ranged from just 16mm at Herne Bay in Kent to 221mm at Loch Sloy in Argyllshire. There were several wet days around the middle of the month, including the 11th when 8 to 12cm of snow fell in parts of south and mid Wales.

Sunshine over England and Wales totalled 116 hours during March 2004 which exactly equals the 1971-2000 average, making it the cloudiest March here for three years. The equivalent figure for Scotland's main population centres was 116 hours (13 per cent above), and for Northern Ireland it was 135 hours (26 per cent above). Monthly aggregates ranged from 80 hours at Eskdalemuir in Dumfriesshire to 163 hours at St Mawgan and Newquay, both in Cornwall.

It was a very sunny month over Scotland (except the southwestern corner), Northern Ireland, and western coasts of England and Wales, but some central and eastern parts of England reported a shortage of sunshine. At Luton (Beds) the shortfall amount to 21 per cent.