Weather: Coldest March for 50 years

It will come as no great surprise to most of us but this March has been cold. Very cold.

We have seen heavy snow, gale force winds and freezing temperatures.

In fact, according to provisional Met Office statistics, it is set to be the coldest March for 50 years.

From 1 to 26 March the UK average temperature was 2.5 °C.

This is three degrees below the long term average. This also makes it joint 4th coldest on record in the UK.

Our typical daytime highs have been at around 4.5 °C. We would normally expect them to be 4 °C higher than that.

It's also been a dull month with less than two thirds of the sunshine we would usually see.

The only silver lining is that it has been surprisingly dry. We saw 72% of the average March rainfall allowing many places to drain after floods earlier tis year.

And I am sorry to say the cold weather is expected to continue through the Easter weekend and well into April.