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Sunscreen, sunhats, barbecues and iced drinks: can it really be March? Scotland broke its highest March temperature record three times over three days, peaking at 23.6C in Aboyne in Aberdeenshire on Tuesday 27 March, making it hotter than Athens, Bermuda, Cairo, Lisbon and Rome. During a more average March Scotland would expect temperatures of around 10C.
Meanwhile in the US over 14,000 warm temperature records have been broken. "It has been an extraordinary month, with some of the most surprising records being when night-time low temperatures were warmer than the previous record for warm daytime temperatures," said Jake Crouch, a climate scientist at the National Climatic Data Center in the US. For example the night-time minimum temperature in Rochester, Minnesota on 18 March was 16.1C, beating the previous day-time high of 15.6C.
So what's behind this "summer" in March? The answer is a very strong ridge of high pressure, which sat over the US first, and then moved across the Atlantic to hover over the UK. In each case the high pressure ridge drew warm air from the south, while barring entry to other weather systems. For Aberdeenshire, temperatures were pushed up further by the Föhn effect – winds that have been warmed by losing their moisture as they pass over the mountains.
However the US is experiencing a hard freeze now, and that chilly weather system is reaching the UK.
