WeatherBlog 20 2019/20 | March: warm and mostly dry

March review

The WeatherBlog is not in the mood for April Fool's jokes and is therefore ignoring this topic option in today's edition. Instead, we take a look at the weather in March 2020 with the help of the weather services' (ZAMG, MeteoSchweiz) March reviews, which are, as always, easy to digest:

March was warmer than average overall, although this was due to the first two thirds of the month. The end of the month was rather cool thanks to the influx of cold, dry air masses from the east in most of the Alpine region. This also shows that high-pressure weather can be mild, as in the first half of March, or icy cold, as recently. An outbreak of cold air with snow down to low altitudes in the last few days of March then added another blob of cold on top. On the first night of April, from yesterday to today, a few negative records for April temperatures were set in Austria, for example a quite remarkable -7.4 °C in Wiener Neustadt and double-digit minus temperatures at many slightly higher stations.

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Spelt sourdough instead of ski touring - summary of spring 2020 in the WeatherBlog. — Spelt sourdough instead of ski touring - summary of spring 2020 at WeatherBlog.

LH

The warm-to-cold development of the March weather led to justified concerns among hobby gardeners and farmers alike about the early flowering vegetation, which thought it was already safely in spring at the beginning of March, only to be shock-frozen again. Some fruit growers resorted to the always visually spectacular frost protection irrigation to save the blossom (see here, for example).

In other cases, too, "rain" from the garden hose or irrigation system had to be used here and there. March was far too dry almost everywhere and the precipitation deficit is now considerable in many regions. The current SnowFlurry.com reports very vividly, among other things, about penitential snow in your own garden thanks to the cold but very dry conditions in the last week of March.

Current situation and outlook

Short version: Lots of sun everywhere, gradually getting warmer.

The cold air advance at the beginning of the week brought us - precisely - cold air, which has not yet moved away again. The flow has weakened considerably, but the direction of flow is still (slightly) northerly. The influence of high pressure is now predominant and we are once again in a cold, dry air mass with minimal northerly flow and low-gradient conditions. On Friday, a weak disturbance will brush the northern Alps and bring a few clouds, but probably only little precipitation.

A change in the general weather situation is on the cards for the weekend: It will remain sunny across the board, but we will slide into the core area of the high pressure system in the west, or rather the high pressure system in the west will strengthen and slide over to us. This will tap into milder air masses from the south, which will displace the cold and should bring a fairly significant rise in temperatures on Sunday. The start of the coming week also looks very sunny, with mild spring-like temperatures.

Fruit trees and home office workers with balconies can therefore look forward to more pleasant conditions. We hope the latter will survive the current cold phase well and without frost protection irrigation.