Record breaking March weather

As well as being warmer overall there were more individual record breaking warm days this year.

The beautiful spring weather enjoyed during March was officially the warmest and driest since records began in 1954 at the James Hutton Institute in Dundee.

The monthly mean air maximum temperature was 14 ºC which easily beats the previous warmest March on record in 1961 when it reached a mean air maximum temperature of 11.8 ºC.

As well as being warmer overall there were more individual record breaking warm days this year as the previous highest daily March temperature of 18.3 ºC, recorded on 29 March 1965, was exceeded on no less than six days with the highest value of 21.6 ºC recorded on 27 March.

March was also the driest on record at the Institute’s site at Invergowrie with a paltry 5.1 mm of rainfall recorded during 2012 representing only 10% of the 30 year long-term average. So far this year we have recorded only 59.4 mm of rainfall (35.5% of the 30 year long-term average) which is the third driest January-March period on record with only 1959 and 1973 being slightly drier.

Although warmer and drier this March was however only the second sunniest March on record with a total of 159.4 hours of sunshine.