Murky winter soaks its way into the record books

Leap day was a soggy one, and it tipped the scales in some areas enduring the wettest February on record.

These include East Anglia, the Midlands and a sweep of south Wales. Even before the downpours on Feb 29, Lincolnshire had experienced more than two and a half times its normal February rainfall, with some farms underwater since last October.

Wet and warm, that has been the miserable trend, and will increasingly be the case each winter as climate change continues to tighten the screws. According to records at the University of Reading, which has been monitoring weather data since 1908, this has been the mildest February it has logged “by some margin”.

In the middle of the month the university’s atmospheric observatory recorded a temperature of 16.9C – the average maximum temperature for the month should be under 9C.

In order to render February less bleak, a petition has been launched to move the leap day to June in order to benefit from an extra day when the weather is better. The chief issue with this seems to be persuading the rest of the world to follow suit – not least the southern hemisphere.

Leap year or not, March seems to be offering us more of the same as we enter into meteorological spring. Yesterday in my neck of the woods was a real daffodil drowner – it tipped it down for much of the day.

The weather looks better over the weekend, and Sunday could see some sunshine poking through. But the new week brings yet more wet weather, and temperatures starting to dip.

However, even this cold spell would only bring us more into line with the average temperatures for this time of year. And after a muggy, murky winter that has soaked its way into the record books, a mundane March sounds just the thing.*

Blossom at Bodnant Garden, in Conwy