It's only the GFS temp profile for London and points south of it which has shortened the cold spell dramatically; further north the GFS profile still looks much like the ECM for London.

I've heard there'll be a considerable warm up after this chilly coming week.    🙂 

Still looking more ☀️ next week but frosty nights and high single digits. Looking very dry as well with little or no rain and sun hours likely to be well above average for a change. Just hope it continue sunny habits for 2025.   Far better start to Spring than last 2 Springs.

GFS Op 00z; LP near Biscay persists to Sun 16th, with a trough linking to Lp Scandinavia and HP near Iceland. Net result is NE-lies fro Britain, rather cold by midweek. The HP then drifts SE-wards to Belarus and the winds change round to the SE, lasting to Fri 21st; still quite cold as the air imported in the previous week takes time to disperse, and the winds strengthen as LP approaches Ireland for a time. Then HP moves up from the SW with something much warmer and by Tue 25th is established in the N Sea.

ECM: similar to GFS but LP is closer to Ireland, on Wed 16th 970mb off Galway

GEM; initially similar to GFS but the HP keeps on moving SE-wards and is followed Thu 18th by LP from the NW 975mb Cape Wrath with trough covering Britain.

GEFS; Temps drop generally to 5 or 6C below norm around Tue 11th, mean recovering to norm in 3 or 4 days in the far S, taking a week or so further N; the mean supported by ens agreement until it gets back to norm after which a spread develops. Rain likely in the SW at any time; in the W from about Wed 16th; otherwise not much pptn anywhere, though present in some runs in small amounts later on. Snow row figures high for E Scotland and NE England around Wed 12th but combined with small amounts of pptn, probably only a dusting from showers.

I shall be away this week, not taking the laptop (and it's too much trouble to do this review on a smart phone) so expect the next review Sat 15th. Please feel free to increase your posts to fill the gap!

Thank you, David. Have a good break.

No - I've got second prize - snow showers in Northumberland😟

Ah. At least your hopes and expectations weren't raised then dashed!

We stayed in Northumberland one time in March, up near Wooler. Stunningly beautiful area. What does stay with me is just how big Northumberland is. Got to Newcastle and presumed I was more or less there. Another hour it took! 

I can get to the Lakes from my home in an hour!

I'd imagine a combination of SSTs being around as low as they get (they tend to bottom out in early March), so less modification, and a reduction in Atlantic westerlies as zonal winds decrease ahead of the final warming ("in like a lion, out like a lamb"), meaning less of an Atlantic influence.

Remember even at the end of March the nights are still quite long, and the sun low in the sky at dawn and dusk doesn't add much warmth.

(I think Four posted something a few years ago about the angle of the sun required for a net input of heat, I can't remember the exact height though!)

Seem a good month and not very wet on the ensembles but most noticable is the sun hours likley to exceed this month even this week cold spell have lot of sun as it from the Arctic source.  Vast improvement from recent March of 2023/24.

https://news.sky.com/story/why-the-weather-has-turned-cold-again-and-could-stay-that-way-through-march-13326203?fbclid=IwY2xjawI9jI1leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHRHBnNjuiFodSczFooaTxPHWrk_V1lfGnWIdTi8iWYZY7rL1yOVF-jHOgg_aem_d6rjTOnRgww_G0Or-LPFiw 

Worth a read. It's odd how they say the SSW has an 80% chance of occurring by Mid March when it's already happened and zonal winds are in reverse. Let me know on thoughts re this article?

It's odd all round, considering that the ECM modelling for the past week shows it to be the final warming, not an SSW!

It was, but this morning it looks rather unsettled and not too warm.

Hmmm, a big call to make at this stage. The models seem to be suggesting it will turn more unsettled again as we go through next week but I'm not seeing anything in them right now which suggest any unusual warmth for later in March.

Yes, I thought that was a strange comment to make at the time as it wasn’t supported by much of the model output (and still is not). The outlook looks cool in coming days rising to around average in 5 or 6 days. The end of the month coukd still turn out to be warm but there’s not much of a signal for that currently.

The SSW has taken place. They could have been talking about its possible impact.

The ECM ensemble run for 10hPa winds suggests a triple dip in the reversal

https://charts.ecmwf.int/products/extended-zonal-mean-zonal-wind?area=nh&base_time= [url=tel:202503130000]202503130000[/url]

The reversal gets so strong by month end that it must be close to unprecedented, given where the forecast is v the 90th percentile.

Models have been doing this a lot recently though,  very unsettled in the 10 to 15 day period but reality is much more settled.