Lancaster scientists record driest March on record

Last month was also the second warmest and the second sunniest March since scientists began taking daily records at Hazelrigg in 1967.

The total rainfall for March 2025 was 27.0 mm – just 33% of the average rainfall for March at Hazelrigg, which is located on the hill just above the university campus on the edge of Lancaster.

This narrowly beats the previous driest March record set in March 1993 which saw 27.6mm of rain.

This is followed by March 2012 which saw 28mm of precipitation and 1996 which had 35.9mm.

Of the 27mm of rain to fall last month, more than half fell in one day on Saturday March 22, with most of the rest falling the following weekend.

This March was also one of the warmest on record. Scientists record the highest and the lowest temperatures each day and use these to calculate average temperatures. Daytime maximum temperatures were 3.0 degrees Celsius above average and the minimum 1.7 degrees Celsius above average.

Many of the warmest months of March have been in recent years, which Dr James Heath, from the Lancaster Environment Centre and one of the team of scientists that takes daily weather recordings at Hazelrigg, says reflects the background warming trend due to climate change.

He said: “Given that average temperatures have been increasing by over 0.2 °C per decade, it’s not surprising that when the conditions are favourable, these temperature records are broken more frequently.”

Year – Max average temp – Min average temp

2024 – 10.2°C – 5.1°C

2017 – 10.8°C – 5.1°C

2025 – 11.6°C – 4.4°C

2022 – 12.0°C – 4.4°C

The average recorded temperature at Hazelrigg for March is 8.6 °C maximum and 2.7 °C minimum.

Sunshine totals were also well up against the average, at 161 hours (155% of average). Though March 2025 was not as sunny as the 177 hours recorded in March 2003.

Dr Heath said: “The reason for the dry, and often sunny weather is that we’ve had high pressure sitting over or very near to the UK for a lot of the month,” he said.

“That blocks the path of the Atlantic weather systems that normally give us most of our rainfall, diverting them to the north or south. Parts of Spain have had more than three times their average rainfall for example.

“The exact position of the high pressure has meant that wind direction has varied, but was often from the south or southeast, giving us some very warm daytime temperatures.

"We reached 17.9 °C on the 20th, which is closer to the averages of July and August, and 17.3 °C as early as the 9th.”

Hazelrigg is a UK Met Office climatological station where daily measurements of temperature, rainfall and sunshine etc have been taken there since 1976, with a further 10 years of data collected before that on the university’s Bailrigg campus.