Spain has been dull, cold and wet, the UK had a very sunny March but then snow and Arctic air. Parts of Europe have been very dry but Storm Diego has brought wild weather to France and Evelyn is next.
With Easter holidays underway or about to begin, there will be people travelling further afield, even catching up with cancelled or postponed trips, finally. For those hoping for some southern Europe sunshine, the weather has been rather contrary recently. For the Alps, there has been recent heavy snow but also unsettled spells as low pressure moved by. The UK by contrast saw one of its sunniest March months on record.
Spain has just had its least sunny March in the last 39 years. It was the sixth wettest March since 1961 and the eighth coldest of the century. A low pressure over north Africa churned up all the Saharan dust but also kept cloud, cold and showery conditions over Iberia.
Nearly the whole of France has been under weather warnings today when MeteoFrance named Tempête (Storm) Diego. This windstorm has also brought heavy rain to northern France including Paris, snow and ice in the north and Violent winds. However, in the south, with drying Foehn Effect, Nice on the Cote D’Azur has just pipped its April record seeing 26.1C. The contrast between the cold Arctic flow, which the UK is still being subject to and the warmer Atlantic air reaching right up from the Caribbean is enhancing the development along the frontal boundary.
There has been heavy rain, which only brushed the south coast of England this morning, staying over France and Diego brought severe weather for a time with the strong winds and high gusts plus precipitation. There are also avalanche warnings. The jetstream has been powering over northern France, southern England developing these lows but also keeping the UK on the colder side. The jet has been enhanced by this temperature contrast and continued to direct low pressures over mainland Europe. Further south than usual
Another significant low pressure out in the Atlantic this weekend will help disrupt the jet’s path across the Atlantic, creating a great meander and allowing the warmer air to pull up towards the UK from the south. This change will be more apparent next week. The low pressure has also been named, this time by IPMA, the Portuguese Met Service for very windy weather over the Azores. Depressão (Storm) Evelyn.
Evelyn begins to fill before it reaches western Europe and so its impacts won’t be severe but will still bring a change. To more unsettled, wet and blustery weather for Ireland and the UK and cooler air with a band of showery rain across Portugal and Spain Monday into Tuesday. It will be windy here with large waves along the coast but welcome rain in places though.
The red colours show drought conditions for northern Italy, Romania and Hungary. This leads to a heightened risk of wildfires too. Also, southern Switzerland and southern Ukraine are dry compared to wet Spain, particularly in the SE including Malaga.
The ECM anomaly charts for the week up to and including Easter show warmth over western and central Europe but cooler than average weather for the eastern Mediterranean, for Greece and Turkey. The UK and NW Europe looks wetter than average, but still dry for Switzerland and Italy. For the week after Easter, it’s looking warmer for southern mainland Europe, through Spain, Italy and the Balkans.
These storm names come from the southwestern naming group: Portugal France and Spain. Our western group of Ireland, UK and the Netherlands reached F for Franklin when a trio of named storms arrived in mid-February, including Dudley and Eunice. The high pressure in March brought settled weather and all that sunshine. It‘s been more mixed for April and that looks to be the case next week but not as chilly.
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