Where I was brought up in Lincolnshire, they spoke of “February Fill Dyke” with the expectation that rains are plentiful enough this month to fill the drainage ditches. In fact February is on average our driest month, with 42.8 mm rainfall in an average year, according to our 39 years of records.

Nevertheless, this February was exceptionally dry: just 3.6 mm fell on four days, with the wettest day a paltry 2.2 mm. It was by some margin our driest ever February, and the sixth driest month overall in our records, with only three Aprils, one May and one August being drier.

The trend of warmer than average months however continued, with the monthly maximum of 15.6°C , mean of 6.4°C, and lowest of -3.5°C all above the long term average (12.9°C, 4.3°C and -3.8°C respectively). There were still nevertheless eight nights with an air frost.

Not surprisingly these conditions were due to a lot of settled weather: the barometer peaked at 1045.4 hPa (a new high for February), averaged 1027.3 hPa (second highest), and the lowest pressure of the month was 1009.4 (also second highest), although we’ve only 15 years of comparable records for these. A blocking high prevented Atlantic lows from tracking near our part of the world. These conditions also brought light winds for the most part, with a maximum gust for the month of 26mph (force 6), the lowest recorded for any February so far. The settled weather didn’t however mean wall to wall sunshine, and many days had a lot of cloud.

Measure	Unit	Minimum	Average	Maximum	Average min	Average max	Total
Relative humidity	%	54	84	96
Temperature	°C	-3.5	6.4	15.6	3.2	10.4
Wind source (most common/highest gust)	Sector		N	NE
Wind speed	mph		2.3	26		15.1
Rain daily accumulation	mm		0.1	2.2			3.6
Barometric pressure	hPa	1009.4	1027.3	1045.5
Solar irradiance during daylight	W/m²		131	629		379
Sunshine (sunny if irradiance > 120 W/m2)	Hours		4.5	7.5			126.5

So, will March “come in like a lion and go out like a lamb”? It’s certainly started like a lamb rather than a lion, but will this continue? Watch this space…