Low temperatures persisting well into May have drastically increased the prospect that this Spring will be the UK's coldest in over 50 years, the Met Office announced on Thursday (30th May).

image expired

Releasing its early provisional statistics this week, Met Office said colder temperatures over the last two weeks have helped to drive down the season's average temperature. Overall, the mean temperature for spring 2013 (covering March, April and May) currently stands at 6.0 °C, based on figures from 1st March to 28th May. Providing there are no drastic changes before tomorrow, the current season will take its place in the top 5 coldest springs since records began in 1910.

At the current rate, this year's is set to be the coldest spring since 1962. Spring 2013 has bucked an observed trend for warmer springs, the Met Office said; eight of the past ten years have seen warmer than average springs, rising above the long-term average of 7.7 °C (covering the 20 years between 1981 and 2010).

Although an exceptionally mild May helped to secure the current season's place in the record books, meteorologists said that freezing weather which accompanied heavy snowfall in March and April is largely responsible for the low mean spring temperature. The March average temperature was 2.2 °C, or 3.3 °C below the long-term average.

Met Office meteorologists said that, although April's mean temperature was slightly below average, overall it was actually the same as 2012. Due to two weeks of cold weather in early May, the mean temperature of 9.3 °C for the month suggests it will be the UK's coldest May in over 15 years.

The colder than average conditions have been caused by different weather patterns at certain times, but generally this season has seen frequent easterly and northerly winds which have brought cold air to the UK from polar and northern European regions.

Although temperatures were cool and the end of March saw heavy snow in upland parts of the country, rainfall levels for March and April were below average. By contrast, May is already wetter than average, having notched up 86mm of rain by the 28th of the month, 19 percent higher than the 70mm average.

Although this spring is set to be drier than average on the whole, the season will not be as dry as the springs of 2010 and 2011.