A Mild March
By Paul Homewood
March 2024 was the 11th warmest on record in the UK.
But yet again we see just how misleading such statistics can be.
As the chart above illustrates all too well, the temperatures we have seen are not in the least unusual. The warmest Marches were in 1938 and 1957 – hardly evidence of global warming! Nor is there any evidence whatsoever that Marches are suddenly going to get much hotter.
What we continue to see is the virtual absence of extremely cold weather in recent years. The massive inter-annual swings in temperature, which were all to common in the past, are almost a thing of the past.
Whether this is climate change or not. I have absolutely no doubt at all that our climate is much less extreme and milder than it used to be. It is also much more predictable.
Would anybody seriously want to swap it for the climate of the past?
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
What we never hear about are the benefits of a milder less extreme climate. An acquaintance of mine at a function was very much on message withe the climate crisis narrative. I pointed out the current UK climate allowed him to enjoy the Derbyshire sparkling wine he was holding. For overseas contributors that’s a latitude of about 53 degrees north. Long may it continue.
In a similar story, the Weather Channel today breathlessly reported the Colorado State hurricane forecast. It was the WORST EVER!!!
Back when Dr Gray ran the CSU hurricane program, it was highly respected. Now, it’s just hacks.
The Weather Channel acted like the FORECAST is reality. It is, of course, just a SWAG, a scientific wild ass guess. No one on the planet is going to do anything different based on the forecast. It is for entertainment purposes, only.
And a forecast with no historical skill.
But you are right - the media treat forecasts as facts now.
“…the media treat forecasts [of disaster] as facts…”
Well, they would. It is called ‘wishful thinking.’
In the real world, 2024 has been a fairly quiet period for Cyclones::
https://climatlas.com/tropical/
The Great Barrier Reef is probably safe for another year. (Secret Thoughts of CAGW Maniacs – “Pity!”) – A big blow is the only way it gets seriously damaged.
It is unclear how trend biases are avoided in this data, which is an average of absolute temperatures over a time varying network of stations. The Met Office marks its own homework and declares that such biases are “small”.
And it’s a month, which is an arbitrary period in an ever-changing system. All that we have is a higher average, but over what period should we care about averages? If the climate has a 1,000 year cycle, ten years is meaningless. We don’t know.
Especially when the WMO (World Meteorological Organisation) rates the majority of the Met Office Weather Stations as Grade 4&5 (Junk).
Paul,
I hope the data don’t lie. However, the idea that March has been mild where I live (in Cumbria) doesn’t seem to tally with the evidence of my own eyes. We’re still putting the log burner on most evenings, going into April. All through March I have been going out with thick shirt, thick jumper, thick coat, gloves and hat. The days when temperatures have reached or exceeded 10C have been rare.
In years gone by I have been climbing Munros in Glencoe in late March in shorts and T-shirt; hill-walking in the Welsh marches in lovely weather; and a couple of years ago in late March my wife and I were sat on the summit of Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) in shirt sleeves, as the culmination of a week of warm (if breezy) weather. This March has been nothing like so mild.
Perhaps but it’s an average so I suspect you (like me) have had relatively mild nights (lots of cloud cover). We’ve also had 2-3 days way above average, which shift the average up.
True – not much frost here in March. I do concede that point.
It’s an average and even on an island this small can be a bit meaningless, you don’t experience “average” weather you experience variable weather where you happen to be. In my case Aberdeen, where I nearly froze to death cycling into a stiff breeze and horizontal rain in what is laughingly called Spring, last week of March. Unseasonable warmth is the Home Counties didn’t affect me much.
I agree , it has seemed pretty cold and miserable to me compared to the Marches of the last few years. What is undeniable as Paul says is that we haven’t had much cold weather for the last 10 years or so. We used to get down to below -10C regularly in our mid-Wales valley. But climate is always changing; at any one time it is either getting warmer or colder – on about a 50 year mini-cycle. It was hot a century ago ; it was cold 50 years ago. Humans have the attention span of a gnat.
I can testify also to the fact that not only has March been cold in Cumbria, it has also been very wet and very overcast. It’s the 5th of April and we are still waiting for even a hint of spring weather. Yet another storm coming in tomorrow. ‘It’s the jet stream stupid’. But only 11 years ago, in 2013, the UK experienced its second coldest March since records began and I remember it very well further south in Lincolnshire, where bitterly cold easterly winds prevailed for most of the month and snow was frequent. I guess that was global warming too!
Same in North Wales, last year I had 6 cycle rides in January, I’ve not been on two wheels since October, wet and gloomy for 6 months.
I suspect most forecasters are ignoring the effects of Hunga Tonga.
Agree, it has been a long cool damp winter and all March was relatively cold in Cumberland. By contrast, 40 years ago in April (now we are at the 5th), it was regular climbing every evening in Borrowdale on new crags in warm dry weather.
No chance of that now.
More anecdotal confirmation yesterday from a contact who lived at Ullswater, he said 40 years ago they were in the lake every afternoon/evening swimming and water skiing, in times when the weather was much warmer than now.
What I see in that chart is randomness. There’s a period where highs are low and lows are low, then where highs are high and lows are low, then a period when highs are low and lows are low but with much graduated change between years, then the current period which has low annual variability clustered around a highish average.
You could throw a dice 100 times each series and say 20 series and I’d better you’d get a similar pattern at least once.
By the way, we are often being told that the paradigm we have to preserve is the climate of the immediately pre-industrial era (why that blink of an eye in the 4.5 billion year life of the planet has to be preserved at all costs has never been explained to my satisfaction). As for your comment that “Would anybody seriously want to swap it [our current climate] for the climate of the past?”, well quite!
https://cliscep.com/2023/06/28/a-yeomans-diary/
I researched several quotes in the past from here and Canada which said that the cold winters of our fathers no longer happen. The first being a quote from 1850 the second from 1890.
Factcheck: Why the recent ‘acceleration’ in global warming is what scientists expect
Here, Carbon Brief takes a detailed look at the issue and finds that there is increasing evidence of an acceleration in the rate of warming over the past 15 years.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-why-the-recent-acceleration-in-global-warming-is-what-scientists-expect/
Must be right then.
Signed and I have forwarded to all those in my email directory.
Total nonsense. The claimed “acceleration” happened extremely quickly coincident with the El Nino. The satellite anomaly pre- El Nino had declined to zero. So was that “expected” too?
And there is no “acceleration.” There is, as is usual with El Ninos, a clear step change that then holds pretty steady:
Monthly, from January 2023
-0.04, 0.09, 0.20, 0.18, 0.37, 0.38, 0.64, 0.70, 0.90, 0.93, 0.91, 0.83, 0.86, 0.93
The EL Nino indicators all went positive in April 2023, clearly seen in the temperature data.
Typical climate science – it utterly ignores the context of the data.
PH: “Would anybody seriously want to swap it for the climate of the past?”
My parents used to tell me stories about the winters immediately following WW2.
The winters in the 1930s were quite mild. Assuming this was going to last, the “in-door” plumbing for the suburban houses, built in such large numbers then, tended to be supplied by pipes fixed on the outside, as this made for extra living space inside. My parents’ house, built in 1939, froze-up quite often after the War. I do not deny climate change. I say that, on the contrary, Nature likes to mess with us!
Not sure where these figures come from but here in North Wales the temperature has been in low single figures throughout March, our woodstore is much depleted, and still using it after the Equinox which is unusual.
Same here in NE Wales. I was beginning to think we were going to run out of logs.
I would agree that in recent years we have not had many cold days during the winters, and especially consecutive days of frosts. I think the last period of cold days was in the lockdown of 2020. As a non-league football supporter we have had only one fixture postponed due to a frozen pitch this season. Waterlogged pitches – that’s a completely different story and the season has been extended by a week. I think this happened in 2018.
We should consider ourselves lucky that the warmer winter has meant being able to use less energy that has been made more expensive by climate change measures to stop us having warmer winters and using more energy.
We in Central Scotland had 2cm snow this morning it’s now getting very wet and slushy ! The forecast last night had snow to a height of 300m, we are at 100m , got it wrong as usual. What is that big red orange blast of wind coming down from the Arctic in the Scottish evening forecast, they have colder winds coming up from the south ??
For anyone interested.
I’ve made a petition – will you sign it?
Click this link to sign the petition:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/660145/sponsors/new?token=VmzcOYwWUKnVLU_gtwOu
My petition:
Pass legislation to ensure all cabinet members use zero emissions transport
The aim is Net Zero by 2050. But targets have been delayed for BEV and heat pumps already. The government should lead by example and pass legislation to ensure that the Cabinet travel only by zero emissions transport at all times.
In the face of a Climate Emergency the government should do more to show the problem is real and they are tackling it urgently. To this end legally binding legislation should be passed as soon as possible to ensure that all members of the Cabinet, Civil Service Heads, all City Mayor’s, police chiefs and their protection officers must travel within the UK and Europe using only zero emissions transport and air travel of less than 500 miles are forbidden for personal and private travel
Sorry replied on wrong post. Signed.
Basically, that would mean they could not travel anywhere, unless on foot or by bicycle, as the electricity used for powering electric transport is not emissions-free, right?
That’s what they are making you do from 2035
“Would anybody seriously want to swap it for the climate of the past?”
Just come across this amateur meteorologist who has posted the ITV news report of cold weather in January 1987. The broadcast details the DEATHS.
https://meophamweather.co.uk/blog/itn-thames-news-and-weather-coverage-of-snow-13th-14th-january-1987/
Thanks, great stuff. I was working in Bermuda at the time so missed it. Faversham gets a mention in Kent Messenger online piece.
‘Later that month, Faversham became one of three places in Britain to have 15 consecutive days without seeing any sunshine, from January 13 to 28, which was a new record.’
I would welcome a week of 4 ins of snow.
The recent 4 years - UK spring weather, have been cool wet seasons. Last year the cool, wet and damp only relented on the final week of May. Sure June was quite hot and then not much, well only alarmism.
Readers might like my recent take on Mean UK Summer Temperature: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-3999999/v1
And this evening the bulletin on GBN said that a new temperature record had been set in Suffolk today. Warmest 6th April evah! I didn’t hang around for the details but do we believe it will be another of the low grade MetOrifice sites where 2 to 5 degrees drowns out the 0.1 or however many tenths of a degree the new record is.
It was a Santon Downham, a small village but seems to have Met Office weather station and is known for record lows and highs due to being mainly sandy ground and they locally refer to their topsy turvey weather.
Also the report I saw (not GB news) referred to it as the hottest day this year.
funny, here in NZ we had the coldest March for many years.