Now the three main winter months have finished we can see what the statistics tell us about the winter, on a positive note, the sunshine levels came in at 121% of average, in fact February was the second sunniest on record (since 1929).
Most of Ireland, Northern Ireland and East Anglia were wetter than normal but a good chunk of Scotland was drier. Scotland and Northern Ireland were generally colder than average, whereas temperatures fluctuated around average in southern parts of the UK. The most widespread very cold weather hit us in the last week of February.
Lots of people have asked what caused the extreme cold weather across Europe during the last five days of February and first few days of March, and could it have been forecast a long time in advance.
The Pacific Ocean is a weather "sweet spot" and we can possibly trace back our winter blast to a weather disturbance in the tropics in January. The Madden-Julian oscillation (MJO) is the name for this weather disturbance, which is a large area of thundery rain moving slowly east around the tropics. Back at the end of January it was the strongest on record (since 1979) over the west Pacific.
The MJO can have global weather impacts; for example, on the timing of the Indian monsoon, how active the tropical storm seasons are in the north Pacific and north Atlantic basins, as well as rainfall patterns in North America.
The strong and long-lasting MJO in the west Pacific Ocean in January sent waves/ripples in the jet stream wind field towards the North Pole. These moved upward into the higher parts of the atmosphere.
Eventually the polar vortex - an area of low pressure spinning high up in the atmosphere - split in to two parts, the air in the stratosphere started to collapse in to the polar cap, compressed and warmed (sudden stratospheric warming).
The winds in the upper atmosphere turned easterly and gradually moved down through the atmosphere and eventually reached the ground. A large area of high pressure became established over Scandinavia and the bitter winds from Russia were steered across Europe.
The air was originally very dry and skies were sunny by day and clear at night. Then snow showers developed in the North Sea and drifted west across the UK and Ireland. The snow was dry and powdery in nature.
An area of low pressure developed, named Storm Emma, and moved up from the southwest to the western English Channel and further heavy snow impacted much of the UK and Ireland. Freezing rain was also observed in parts of southern England.
The combination of Storm Emma with the high pressure over Scandinavia helped produce the strong winds, which gave a significant wind chill, and made the snow blow around and form drifts.
The weather impacts were significant with severe travel disruption and the highest energy demand of the winter was recorded.
Our previous Weather Watch, published on 7 February, gave a good heads-up for winter blast with over two weeks' notice. We stated: "For 23-28 February the weather is likely to feature a return to below or well below average temperatures. We believe there is a 60% risk of this cold weather becoming established for the end of the month, and it could last well into March. Wind and precipitation levels will decline during the last week of February but the risk of snow is higher than normal. Some very cold nights are expected too."
The weather was a very big topic on Twitter, and our friends at MeteoGroup (WeatherCast), MetDesk (metdesk) and the Met Office (metoffice) kept everyone informed with some fascinating tweets.
For the remainder of March the main weather culprit will be low pressure! It's highly likely that low pressure will be centred very near the UKand Ireland, starting just to the southwest of us, then a spell when it's directly over us, before gradually moving to the northwest of us just after midmonth / towards the end of the month. The chart above shows thefive day average pressure pattern for the period from 12 March (map credit MetDesk). Note the low pressure centred very close to Ireland.
With this is mind, the weather is likely to be very wet at times in March, with some heavy downpours in prospect. The wettest areas look to be Wales and England, but some very wet weather at times also for south east Ireland and south east Scotland. One of the driest locations, relative to average, could be north west Scotland.
Wind levels are expected to be below average in Scotland, but above average in southern UK. Due to the cloud and frequent showers, the sunshine amounts will be down on average, notably for south east England. The exception again could be north west Scotland with some sunny days to come here.
On the whole, it's going to stay colder than average through the month, most likely in Scotland. A few warmer days are likely for southern England, with daytime temperatures up to 13 Celsius.
It's interesting to note that after our recent very cold period, the sea surface temperatures around the British Isles have cooled markedly. This will be one factor in keeping daytime temperatures down as we go through early Spring.
The map in the teaser image on our main news page shows the change in sea surface temperatures from a year ago (blue=colder, yellow-orange-red= warmer).
For more weather information you can follow our senior meteorologist, Simon Cardy on twitter weather_king.