March fails to put a spring in the step as sun stays away

MARCH has officially been a gloomy month for much of England, with some parts of the country receiving less than 10 hours of sunshine so far.

Parts of southern England have had only a tenth of average sunshine during the first two weeks of March, according to data from the University of Reading.

Exeter in Devon and Yeovil in Somerset had the least hours of sunshine so far, with 8.2 and 10.9 hours, respectively, in the month as of yesterday.

Overall, March has been about 2.5C (36.5F) below average temperatures, but the Met Office said it had not been an unusually cold start to spring.

Peter Inness, a lecturer in the meteorology department at the University of Reading, said that gloomy weather at the start of this month could be giving the impression that the UK was experiencing a long, cold winter.

“The records show that actually this year hasn’t been that unusual,” he said. “But the last week or so has been below normal for sunshine and well above normal for rainfall. So that will colour people’s perceptions.”

A relatively cold start to the spring was more common in the years before climate change started bringing warmer temperatures, he said.

“Our perception of what normal is has changed a lot in the last 20 years,” he said.

The picture is less gloomy in the north of the UK, which has had significantly more sunshine, including parts of Scotland on 60 hours so far.