Last month produced 39.4mm of much-needed precipitation, partly quenching the island’s thirst for rain after the sunny and dry winter season.

The Met Office said that in fact, March produced more rain than January (15.0mm) and February (0.6mm) combined, and outpoured the climate norm for the month by 1.5mm of precipitation. With 11.6mm of rainfall measured within 24 hours, the 30th of March went down on record as last month’s wettest day.

This was then followed by the month’s brightest day, which clocked up a total of 11.3 hours of sunshine and brought March to a close on a sunny note.

The Met Office noted that the month was duller than the climate norm, enjoying 197.1 hours of sunshine rather than expected 222.3 hours, with a mean cloud cover of 4.2 oktas, which was heavier than expected at this time of year.

Air temperatures for March were slightly warmer than average, and ranged between a lowest minimum of 8.8°C recorded on the eighth day of the month and a maximum of 22.2°C reached six days later.

Averaging at 16.1°C, the Met Office said that the sea surface temperature was 1°C higher than the climate norm.

The first occurrence of thunder for the year was on the 25th of March, almost three months after the last thundery instance was reported on the 30th of December 2019.

On this day in March, no sunshine was recorded and the month’s strongest gust blowing at 42 knots from an easterly direction was recorded.

The Met Office said that in general, the month was windier than expected at this time of year, maintaining a mean wind speed of 10.9 knots rather than the norm of 9.4 knots.

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