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Yorkshire Water have told Ö÷²¥´óÐã Yorkshire that even if the rest of spring and summer turns out to be as dry as 1995, there will be no water restrictions in Yorkshire.

1995 was a disastrous year for the company. Reservoirs were full at the end of March, but a pipe network that was badly in need of repair, coupled with drought conditions which lasted from Spring through till Autumn, meant that some parts of the county were within days of running out of water.

Drinking water was tankered in from Kielder reservoir in Northumberland to Scammenden reservoir in West Yorkshire at the height of the crisis.

But since then the company has fixed most of its leaky pipes, and spent £300 million pounds in developing a state of the art underground pipe network.

This allows water to be pumped around the county from 3 main sources.

In the west of the region reservoirs capture Pennine rainfall; In the north they can extract water from several rivers including the Ouse; and in the east they can take ground water from ground from bore holes.

Despite the fact that March was the driest since 1994 in Bradford, and April so far has been exceptionally dry, February was a very wet month, and it's largely because of this rainfall that water stocks currently stand at 84%.

The company say that should the drought be worse than that experienced in 1995 then they may have to review the situation, and they advise all their customers to conserve water at any time of the year.

But the drought of 1995, which across some parts of the Yorkshire Dales was statistically a 1 in a 500 year event, will take some beating; so for Yorkshire Water to make the prediction they have, shows a great deal of confidence on their part.

We've had mixed fortunes at Easter over the years. Despite what we all might hope for, or think we remember, it is much more common for Easter weather to be poor rather than good. The last fine and warm Easter was in 2007. In fact April 2007 turned out to be the warmest on record - with April 2011 likely to test that record set only 4 years ago.

But many will remember Easter Sunday 2008 which fell at the end of March, when much of the region woke up to several inches of snow.

This year, the build up to Easter couldn't be any better. The current spell of warm and dry weather that much of the country has enjoyed in the last few days looks set to last all week, with only a small chance of a shower.

Worth remembering at this time of the year with an easterly breeze, albeit light, there is always a risk of sea fret developing at times in coastal areas - in fact the latest satellite picture shows some already just off the Humber.

With high pressure over the near continent, warm continental air could mean temperatures in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire approach 21C (70F) later this week, with only a very small chance of a shower (Less than 10% risk).

The start of Easter should see the warmth continue. Later in the weekend though it looks like the easterly wind will freshen up, especially along the coast, leading to lower temperatures across the region.

The biggest uncertainty by Easter Monday seems likely to be whether or not low cloud will develop in such a set up.

It's too far away to put any detail on this aspect of the forecast, as a subtle change in the strength or direction of the wind, or a change in the humidity of the air, could mean the difference between clear blue skies, or a full cover of low cloud spreading all the way inland to the Pennines.

So in summary, as it stands at the moment, much of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire look set to have a mostly dry Easter weekend, with only a small chance of a shower.

Good Friday and Easter Saturday looks set to be very warm inland, dare I say it 'barbeque Easter' conditions.

Easter Sunday and Easter Monday also looks predominantly dry, but by Easter Monday it will be quite a bit cooler with a risk of some low cloud spreading inland from the North Sea at times. This part of the forecast will be updated later this week.

The global temperature anomaly for March according to NASA/GISS was 0.57c, up from 0.44c in February. Adjusted to the 1961-90 time period this is approx 0.46c compared to 0.33c last month.

The Hadcrut3 global anomaly figure for March showed a smaller increase at 0.318c, up from 0.264c last month.

These two measures of global temperatures directly contradict the satellite based measurements, RSS and UAH, which both showed cooling in March, leaving a confused picture.

I've created this new blog rather than amending the existing one because Ö÷²¥´óÐã policy is now to close existing blogs after a week.

Although locally we have been enjoying unusual warmth in the last few weeks, globally the opposite has been true. Indeed, at the end of last week , an organisation backed by NOAA, announced that March 2011 was the coldest March since 1994, according to their analysis of satellite data.

This is the first month since June 2008 that the global temperature anomaly has been negative on this measure.

The image below shows which regions of the world were coldest and warmest in March.

According to the University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH) satellite data analysis, March 2011 continued to cool (see graph below) with the tropics, Northern and Southern Hemisphere all showing a negative anomaly.

As the impact of La Nina continues to fade in the Pacific, global temperatures should begin to stabilise at these levels, and then cyclically rise in the next few months. Nevertheless it's been quite a spectacular drop in the last 12 months.

UPDATE Tue 12th April

The provisional figures published by the Met Office at the end of March proved to be wide of the mark by quite a margin. After a wet end to the month, UK rainfall ended up at 49.9mm making it only the driest March since 1996 when 48.2mm was recorded, and not 1953 as was stated in the provisional figures mentioned in this blog.

ENDS

High pressure has dominated our weather for much of this month, with exceptionally low rainfall totals across Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.

At Coningsby in Lincolnshire only 4.8mm of rain fell, compared with the average which is 41mm. This makes it their driest March since records began at the RAF base in 1961.

Across Yorkshire, Church Fenton has a new record of sorts. 6.4mm was recorded in the month. The previous record was set in 1953 with 8.0mm, although there were a few years when the RAF base was closed so the data set is incomplete.

Leeming has had its fourth driest March on record, with 8.4mm of rain, compared with the average of 43.4mm.

According to the Met Office, the UK average rainfall total from 1 to 29 March was 39.1 mm - 41% of the long-term average for the whole of the month which is 95.9 mm.

This provisional figure makes it the driest March since 1953 when 41.6 mm of rain was recorded.

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