How cold was the winter?
Last September the Met Office made predictions of a cold winter that led to headlines about a bitter freeze on the way. In, fact the forecasters had predicted only average, or slightly below, temperatures. But they gave warning that this would come as a shock because we have become used to mild winters over recent years. This certainly came true for Wiltshire with the coldest winter since 1996-97. But if the Met Office had defined winter as ending on the spring equinox on March 20th then the winter forecasts for the country were correct. March has been so cold that it would have dragged down the average temperature for the whole of the winter.

The main feature of March's weather was the long spell of cold, cloudy, easterly winds that lasted almost two weeks during the middle part of the month. The first week was also very cold, thanks to a strong north wind that came straight out of the Arctic and that brought heavy snowfalls to northern and eastern Scotland; further substantial snow fell in southern and central Scotland on the 11th and 12th. The change to warm southerly winds during the last week or so prevented this from being an outstandingly cold March.

In the past 100 years there have been 28 colder Marches. The month's highest temperature in the United Kingdom was 17.8°C (64°F), recorded at RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire Sunday 26th March, whereas four days later Lyneham recorded its highest day temperature of 14.6°C. The lowest maximum reading was -1.3°C (29.7°F) at Fylingdales, North Yorkshire, on March 4th.

Severe night frosts occurred frequently, especially during the first week and again just after mid-month, and night time temperatures widely dropped below -10°C (14°F) on the mornings of March 2nd, 3rd and 4th. The lowest reading of all was -16.3°C (2.7°F) at Altherland Sutherland, early on March 3rd. That was the lowest March temperature in the UK for five years. Twenty-four hours later, Lyneham experienced its monthly lowest recorded temperature of –6.2°C.

Rainfall, totalled 69mm over Lyneham’s skies for the month, which was 124% from the March average , making this the first wetter than average month since October last year. In the past 100 years only 24 Marches have been wetter. Despite 20 days without any significant or noticeable precipitation, the wettest day was on the 30th March, where a staggering 20mm was gladly received to dampen reservoirs. This downpour was a few days before Thames Water Board imposed a hosepipe ban owing to the drought conditions over the last 18 months. Sunshine over Lyneham totalled 108 hours, which was 87% of the monthly average. There was only four days without any sunshine recorded.