After the warmest weather of the year so far, is winter finally over?

Spring for meteorologists; It is three months consisting of March, April and May. This means we have fixed time intervals to make comparisons and record what happened throughout the season.

In the astronomical calendar, spring is marked by the equinox, which this year falls on March 20. This is when the northern hemisphere begins to tilt towards the Sun and receives more solar radiation.

So in early spring, North Africa and the Mediterranean begin to warm faster than the Arctic warming rate.

For the UK in the mid-latitudes the wind direction becomes more pronounced throughout March.

Winds from the south will send warm air in our direction and could push temperatures into the lows or even into the mid-twenties. The highest temperature in March was 25.9 degrees in Cambridgeshire in 1968.

If weather conditions bring wind from the north or east, we take advantage of that cold Arctic air and can see the magic of winter weather. The coldest daytime temperature in the UK in March was minus 4.7 degrees at Tredegar in south-east Wales in 2018.

And it was early March 2018 when the infamous ‘Beast from the East’ hit the UK. The strong wind blowing from east to northeast brought with it cold air, especially from Siberia and the Arctic, and caused widespread snowfall.