IT would seem that we have now become accustomed to climate change. The fact that the advance of spring was a month ahead of the calendar at the beginning of March scarcely registered in the media, and there was no slowing down of the process as the weeks passed.

The month began with temperatures well above normal, and wildlife responded accordingly. On Monday, March 2, at Swains Local Nature Reserve, a slow worm was seen sunbathing while a chiffchaff, our earliest migrant warbler, was singing in the bushes. Under anticyclonic conditions, daytime temperatures in that first week reached 15.6⁰C (60⁰F), with little or no wind.

A change of weather pattern on Saturday, March 7, saw a weak cold front advance slowly across our region, giving a cool, grey day with some heavy drizzle in the evening. This marked the start of a more unsettled spell, with patchy rain or showers on several days and freshening winds, but temperatures remained above average. A much more active front arrived from the north-west on Thursday, March 12, giving a rather damp day before a spell of heavy rain in the night, accompanied by winds gusting to gale force. The 11mm (0.4 inch) of rain in Wellington would prove to be the month’s heaviest fall.

Following that, Friday, March 13, was an unpleasant day. There were heavy showers of sleet during the middle of the day, with a brisk wind that that slowly subsided to give a quiet, clear night with a ground frost. The next day offered wall-to-wall sunshine, but the air remained on the cool side into the start of the following week, with further chilly nights and some patchy light rain at times, before a new anticyclone formed over the British Isles.

With high air pressure firmly in charge, the seven-day spell commencing on Tuesday, March 17, was extraordinarily sunny. Daytime maxima rose well above normal, and reached 19⁰C (66⁰F) on Wednesday, March 18, which is the earliest date on record for such a high temperature in Wellington. With the very clear skies, there were some more chilly nights, with that of March 19 having our first air frost since mid-January.

Conditions changed again for the final week of the month, with the return of westerly winds that were at times strong and gusty, but brought little in the way of rain. All days apart from Sunday, March 29, offered some, if not plenty of, sunshine. The last day of the month was particularly balmy, with only a gentle breeze and a maximum temperature in Wellington of 19.3⁰C (66.7⁰F), making that our eighth-warmest March day ever.

The summary statistics for March 2026 are rather impressive. With a mean temperature in Wellington of 8.9⁰C (48.0⁰F) it was the second-warmest March on record, and warmer than every April between 1962 and 1980. The total rainfall of 31mm (1.2 inches) was only 40 per cent of the average, making it the eighth-driest March in this area since 1960.