It felt like March brought a lot of snow, cold and little spring-like temperatures.
But the balance sheet of the observatory on the Hoher Peißenberg speaks a different language - this month was too mild overall, it was a March of extreme contrasts.
Hohenpeißenberg
- The first days of March lived up to the meteorological beginning of spring.
There was a high pressure area over Central Europe, which is why the first month of spring even started a little too mild.
The daily maximums from March 2nd to 4th were a little over 10 degrees Celsius.
On March 4th, however, the high changed its position and polar air was able to penetrate into Central Europe.
The daily maximums fell from 12 degrees on March 4th to just 2 degrees on March 5th.
With the cold air, snow fell again, so that on March 6th, 8th and 10th a snow cover of two to six centimeters in height could form again on the Hohen Peißenberg.
From March 7th it became milder again.
With a westerly weather situation, the wind blew stormy from March 11th to 14th on the Hohen Peißenberg.
The wind peaks reached wind speeds of 9 to 10 on the Beaufort scale.
Rain fell every day.
After the storm, the wind turned from northwest to north - that was the start of the typical March winter (see box).
A high pressure area west of the British Isles kept Atlantic low pressure areas at a distance and thus blocked the influx of warmer air masses from the Atlantic.
31 centimeters of snow cover
On March 13th the rain turned into snow, and the next day a closed snow cover formed.
She grew to 31 centimeters by March 18.
In the Alps, there was 50 to 80 centimeters of snow growth as a result of damming in the north.
On March 19, from 4 to 5 p.m., a winter thunderstorm was observed in connection with a heavy snow shower.
March 21st and 22nd were days without sunshine, with snowfall, fog and permafrost on the mountain.
After this nine-day interlude in late winter, a high formed over Central Europe on March 23rd.
It brought spring, after which the daily maximums were consistently above 10 degrees Celsius.
The last four days of March were the most beautiful.
The sun shone 11 to 12 hours a day.
The warmest day was March 31st with a daily maximum of 21.3 degrees Celsius.
It was particularly cold on March 20th
Overall, March was 1.4 degrees too warm with a monthly mean temperature of 3.0 degrees Celsius.
It was characterized by frequent ups and downs in temperatures, with winter phases alternating with almost summer ones.
This was particularly evident in the daily maximum temperatures.
The lowest daily maximum on March 20 was minus 3.5 degrees (ice day), March 31, as mentioned, was almost 25 degrees warmer.
March 20th was also the coldest day of the month with minus 6.9 degrees Celsius.
There were five ice days (maxima below zero), frost occurred on a total of 18 days.
Next to Saxony, Bavaria was the coldest federal state.
While it was again too dry in Germany - there was 25 percent less rainfall than the average - 13 percent more rainfall was measured on the Hohen Peißenberg with 73 liters per square meter.
March was full of sunshine everywhere.
In southwest Germany, the sun made it to almost 200 hours, but the Hohe Peißenberg also achieved a top position with 170 hours of sunshine (124 percent).
There was a snow cover for 16 days, continuously from March 14th to 26th.
The highest wind peak was on March 13th.
97 km / h (wind force 10 on the Beaufort scale).
Siegmar Lorenz
weather observer, Hohenpeißenberg observatory
