After a well above average winter this year time to turn our attention to Spring. Just four days to go until the start of March.

The deadline for CET entries is 23:59 on 29 Feb. Entries will be accepted up to 48 hours late but with the usual penalty regime applied for those who are participating in the annual competition.

Please place your March CET predictions in this thread

Historic data summary

Here is the usual rundown of historic data. Since 1997 there have been 9 March’s with a CET of 7C or more. Only twice has the CET been below 6C. The last really cold March was 2006 with 4.9C. The warmest March in recent times was 1997 with 8.4C.

In 2011 the March CET was 6.7C, in 2010 6.1C and 2009 7.0C.

Long run averages:
1971-2000: 6.3C
1981-2010: 6.6C

Here is a chart of the March CET since 1961 with a 10 year moving average



Here are some details of what the models and forecasters generally are saying at the moment

GEFS
London GEFS http://www.wzkarten3.de/pics/MT8_London_ens.png
Manchester http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/MT8_Manchester_ens.png
Generally around average or slightly above in the first part of the month

ECM ensembles (De Bilt) 
http://www.knmi.nl/exp/pluim/vijftiendaagse/index.html
Above average to start with but turning a bit cooler towards the end of the run

Weatheronline 
http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/cgi-app/reports?MENU=Month-ahead
Not updated for some time.

TWO
http://www.theweatheroutlook.com/forecast/30-day-uk-weather-forecast 
http://www.theweatheroutlook.com/twoforecasts/17-to-30-day-outlook.aspx
Looks to be above average generally

Netweather
http://cdn.nwstatic.co.uk/images/lrf/feb12/martemp.png  
Looks to be close to average

Wiseweather 
http://www.wiseweather.co.uk/id18.html
Not yet available – usually updates on the last day of the month

Met Office 30 day outlook
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/uk_forecast_weather.html
Temperatures close to or above average
 
Met Office 3 month outlook (Mar to May) 
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/publicsector/contingency-planners 
Not yet available – usually updates on the last day of the month.

Pattern matching

Looking at years with a winter CET between 4.6C and 5.6C and a February CET between 3.6C and 4.6C there are 9 years that meet these criteria since 1900 including 1976 which is interesting given talk of a drought that could be as severe as 1976. 

Of those 9 years 3 saw a March CET about average (6.2C to 6.5C), 3 saw a very mild March (6.7C to 7.5C and these were the 3 most recent years being 1993, 2003 and 2005) and 3 cold years (3.3C to 4.8C this includes 1976 with 4.8C)

So no real pattern to be discerned here. All we can say is that when this pattern has occurred in recent years March has been mild but in earlier years it was not so including in 1976. 

Edited by user 25 February 2012 22:15:18(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

I'll go for a very mild month with a CET of

8.8c

My last predicition for February was for a cold month and its turned out mild so I'm sticking to my mild predicitions from now on.

Goodness knows. I need to give this one more thought.

6.8 for me please

I'll go for it.

7C

Not as warm as it might be. I have just run a series of charts and I think some cool nights might knobble warm spells.

Well the spikes on the temp chart look like they should have another down spike about now, so on that basis I'll punt for a CET of 4.9C

Edited by user 26 February 2012 17:30:39(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Originally Posted by: Hungry Tiger

I'll go for it.

7C

Not as warm as it might be. I have just run a series of charts and I think some cool nights might knobble warm spells.

Biting the bullet eh?  A brave move HT!  Not as brave as mine, sitting on the MO thread. 

Warm March, cooler April, so will go for 7.2. 

R

6.5C please.