Spring 2009 (March to May) lived up to the reputation of the season as a transitional one. The first week of March had a distinctly wintry flavour with snowfalls and frosts, whereas the last week of May saw a foretaste of summer with temperatures around 22 0 degC widely on several days. The weather was changeable for much of the time, but there were few noteworthy days.
The UK mean temperature for spring was 8.6 0 C, which is 1.2 degC above the 1971-2000 average. Mean temperatures over the UK were 0.8 degC above average during March, 1.9 degC above during April and 0.8 degC above in May. Provisionally April was the third-warmest over Scotland and equal third over England, in a series from 1914, but not as warm as April 2007 (ranked first). There was a notable absence of frost, particularly in April, and the total days with air frost for the season over the UK was the fifth lowest in a series from 1961 (but slightly more than spring 2007).
Spring rainfall was below normal over most of England and Wales, particularly over eastern and southern England where many areas recorded less than 70% of average. It was the driest spring over England and Wales since 1997. Less than 50% of monthly average rainfall was recorded in parts of northeast England, the Midlands and Wales in March and in parts of eastern England and eastern Scotland in April. In contrast, the spring rainfall was above normal over Northern Ireland and western Scotland.
Sunshine totals for the spring were well above the 1971-2000 average generally across the UK. March was a particularly sunny month, with 153% of normal. Provisionally, it was the fifth-sunniest March over Scotland, the second over England and the third over the UK. Overall, spring 2009 ranked sunniest over Scotland, third-sunniest over England and third-sunniest over the UK, in a series that began in 1929.