Clear weather at this time of year with a strengthening sun tends to mean warm days but cold nights. Our maximum temperature for the month was 19.9°C, which was our sixth highest March maximum in our 41 years of records, and the average daily maximum at 13.5°C was a new record for us, beating 13.2°C recorded in 2012. Overall too it was another month that was much warmer than the long term average, the mean of 8.0°C well above the long term mean of 6.8°C. Those clear nights were chilly, however, and our lowest temperature of the month at -2.1°C was below the average March minimum of -1.9°C. There were six frosts in March, the last being on the 16th. If that were to prove to be the last frost of the winter then it will be considerably earlier than our mean date of 5th April.

All this settled weather was unsurprisingly down to a persistent high pressure which just ebbed enough a couple of times to let cloud and rain in. The highest, mean and lowest pressures recorded for the month were all above the long term average (in our 17 years of comparable Epping records).

And so to the rainfall: it only rained on seven days in March, the fifth fewest in our records, and the total for the month at 9.0mm was only just above our driest ever March, 8.8mm in 2011. The wettest day was the 23rd, with a modest 4.2mm, and again only 2011 had less rain on its wettest day with 3.3mm.

Finally, no sign of lions in our winds for March. The maximum gust for the month was 21mph (force 5), which is the lowest maximum for March in our records by a distance: our average March max is 40mph (gale force 8) and our previous lowest was 29mph in 2022.

Given the chilly nights, it is no surprise that wind directions in the north and east predominated.

April has started where March left off, with settled sunny weather. Will we get those April showers? Have we had our last frost of the winter? Come back next month to find out!