Germany’s DWD national weather service has released the preliminary mean weather results for the country for March, 2018: “In summary a cold March, again snow in the north and east.”
Wintry 2018 spring start in Germany. Photo by P Gosselin.
The reason for the cold March, according to the DWD: “Germany was in a mostly dry, very cold easterly air pattern. Atlantic lows from the west could hardly make any headway.”
According to data collected from the country’s 2000 weather stations, Germany’s preliminary mean temperature for the first month of spring came in at only 2.5°C, which is 1.8°C below the 1981-2010 reference period mean.
The coldest treading recorded was -19.2°C occurring at Barth near Stralsund. March, 2018, was the second month in a row with below mean temperatures in Central Europe.
The following chart gives the mean temperature for each state (Source: DWD):
March was drier than normal as well, with 50 l/m2 of precipitation falling (mean = 57 l/m2). However, the DWD writes that March 2018 was “characterized by extreme wintery periods, with considerable snowfall in some regions.” Also some “lake-effect” areas near the Baltic sea saw 40 cm of snow. “
At 110 hours of sunshine, Germany almost hit the dead mean of 11 hours.
Austria: “Unusual number of frost days”
Meanwhile Austria’s weather and climate service ZAMG reports that March has come in “cool and overcast”.
According to ZAMG climatologist Alexander Orlik, sunshine came in 20% below the mean and temperature came in at 1.3°C below the mean. There wasalso “an unusual number of frost days, where the temperature does not climb above the freezing point. the ZAMP reports. Vienna saw five such days and Graz saw four. Normally these cities see only one “frost day” every two or three years in March.
Another white Easter!
Meanwhile for some parts of Germany snow is forecast for the Easter holidays. According to Tag24, snow is expected to fall in Saxony. This will be the second Easter in a row with snow. What follows is a vid of Wolfsburg, Saturday, March 31st:
So, Europeans have been waiting 18 years for snow to become a thing of the past. Increasingly it’s becoming a thing of spring.
A Happy Easter for you and your loved ones Pierre.
And from me.
Thanks! Same to you! Happy Easter!
And best wishes from Donald here in NSW Australia where we are experiencing daily temps in the mid 30’s (centigrade) west of the Great dividing range. Some of us ‘old timers’ think that the weather pattern has gradually moved back a month or more.
Yep, Don.
Forecast is 28ºC here today in Newy…
Nice morning fog,
Sunny all day.
GORGEOUS weather 🙂
Snow is all very “pretty” to look at…
… but I prefer what we have down here. 🙂
Happy Easter all, even the little AGW trolls. !
Nice photo Pierre.
This March was the coldest since 1962, says Sweden’s SMHI – The Local Sweden
https://www.thelocal.se/20180330/sweden-sees-coldest-march-since-1962
14 hours ago – No, it didn’t just feel that way. This March is shaping up to the fifth coldest since records began, according to preliminary data from Sweden’s state weather forecaster SMHI.
Sweden’s state weather forecaster SMHI has since changed it’s report. Umm, how every inconvenient.
Early indications are that this will not be the case. Mean temperatures for the month so far (to 28th) have been well below average in all areas, typically by nearly 2 °C. However, this is around 1½ °C less cold than the notable March of 2013, which was the coldest March since 1962. Perhaps surprisingly, March 2018 will not rank within the coldest ten Marches since 1910. However, it could end up being the third coldest March in the last 30 years…READ ALL
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/2018/march-statistics
Meanwhile in the USA some people are noticing March has been a notably cold month so far… http://www.nbc12.com/story/37828768/first-alert-march-has-been-a-notably-cold-month-so-far
But are hoping for a warmer end to the month.
It will remain colder than average well into this month of April. Looks like this truck driver will be doing some winter driving as I drive around in Pennsylvania tomorrow.
And in Canada, Calgary expecting the coldest Easter weekend since 1940…
https://globalnews.ca/news/4115949/calgary-expecting-the-coldest-easter-weekend-since-1940/?utm_source=GlobalNews&utm_medium=Facebook
This is “weather”, but unlike warm weather the MSM, politicians, climate “scientists” and trolls are not jumping around and shouting about it.
B&T,
Indeed we would not like to mention that parts of South America has been noticeably cooler this year, or that there was snow events occurring in Australia’s summer, or that Korea and Japan have had very cold spells recently. Please do not write about all these cold weather events as they are meaningless in an apparently warming world.
Strangely the arctic sea ice seems to be increasing again , whilst in the Antarctic the ice has increased by 1.5M sq km in 1 month , 50% higher increase than the “standard” for the same period.
https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/
Admittedly the absolute levels in both cases are low, but something unusual seems to be happening currently to the rate of change.
Also the arctic temperatures are falling again according to DMI
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php