Monday, 04 March 2019
Winter Returns?
The beginning of March sees the start of meteorological spring although with the collapse of the lovely mild weather to something more normal for the time of year it feels a bit like winter has returned. There's no doubt about it, February was a little bit special.
In the end only the first two days of the month had daytime high temperatures below the expected average for the month with 27 February 2019 setting a ten year February high temperature of 16.9°C (62.4°). It probably goes without saying that this February turned out to be the mildest I've recorded over the last 10 years.
February turned out to be a good month for getting lots of tidying up jobs done on the allotment not only because of the mild temperatures but because it turned out to be another dry month following on from a dry January.
I don't think we've ever made so much progress, tidying up the plot and getting beds dug over ready for spring planting, so early in the season. However, the fine February weather didn't tempt us into sowing any seeds but that job will begin in the next few weeks of early March.
Whilst February made it to number one spot in the mildest February chart it didn't do enough to make the winter of 2018/19 the mildest I've recorded.
The average winter temperature finished at around average based on my records but that dry January and February I mentioned made it the driest winter of the last 10 years.
Perhaps I'll regret posting this but so far this is the worst of our winter snowfall.
Of course there is still the chance of a decent snowfall in either March or April.