A warm March with barely average precipitation
There were never any very cold temperatures during March and along with a few days that got close, I mean really close, to 20°C, the result was an overall temperature over 3 degrees above average. This made it the warmest March in the last 9 years since that very memorable one back in 2012.
Over half the month’s precipitation came on one day, when we saw 28.6 mm on the 26th, while the rest of the month was very dry. The total of 44.0 mm was just barely enough to get it into the average range, even though it was much less than the average of 61.0 mm. This year has started out very dry with only 109.3 mm of precipitation compared to an average of 187.6 mm for this time of year.
With the combination of warm temperatures and low precipitation it shouldn’t surprise anyone that we only got 1.5 cm of snow during March. This of course is much less than the 26.5 cm of snow that we get on average.
If we don’t get any more this year, the total for the snowfall season will stay at 129.5 cm, well below the average of 159.7 cm. However, it may have felt like we had more snow this winter as it stayed cold enough from late December to early March not to melt all the snow we received. We never got the typical mid-winter snow reset and thus the snow piled up into large mountains beside our driveways making it seem like a snowy winter, when really it wasn’t.
Summary for March 2021:
Maximum Temperature 19.8°C
Minimum Temperature -16.0°C
Average Daily High Temperature 8.6°C (Long term average 3.6°C)
Average Daily Low Temperature -4.3°C (Long term average -5.6°C)
Total Precipitation 44.0 mm (Long term average 61.0 mm)
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1 comment:
For the second year in a row, the Waterloo International Airport weather station had a first occurrence of 20.0 C in March, while that elusive first 20.0 C reading of the season is still yet to be observed at U of Waterloo. It goes to show how local effects can make quite the difference sometimes!
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