With last year’s “beast from the east” fading from our memory, many of us are hoping for a warm, dry spring. Spring 2011 was a classic example: the second driest across England and Wales in the past century, after spring 1990, and the warmest for the whole of the last hundred years.
Going back even further, to the Central England temperature series that began in 1659, the three months from March to May 2011 were also record-setters, the mean temperature of 10.2C (50.4F) equalling that of spring 1893.
But be careful what you wish for. Warm, dry springs may be welcomed by us, but they have their consequences. In 2011 levels dropped drop in rivers, lakes and reservoirs, causing water shortages that badly affected fruit growers as well as the general public.
As in last year’s hot, dry summer, the lack of rain meant that grass – vital for feeding livestock – grew very slowly, causing food shortages for cattle and sheep farmers. As the warm weather continued, forest fires broke out across much of the north of England, Northern Ireland and Scotland, fanned by strong winds.
The weather broke in Scotland soon afterwards and, north of the border, May 2011 was the wettest for a century. But Essex and Kent had one of the driest Mays ever recorded.
