March 2026 has officially gone down as the sunniest March ever recorded at The James Hutton Institute’s Invergowrie site, with sunshine hours soaring to levels not seen in more than 70 years of monitoring.
Last month delivered 185.1 hours of sunshine, exceeding the previous record of 170.9 hours set in 2022. That’s 152.6% of the long‑term average sunshine for the time of year.
It was also a notably warm month. With a daily average temperature of 6.9ºC, 1.1ºC above the long-term average, March 2026 tied with 2017 as the eighth warmest March on record. The month’s highest temperature was 16.7ºC, recorded on 31st March, while the lowest dipped to -4.2ºC just five days earlier, on 26 March. The warmest March ever recorded at Invergowrie remains 2012, with an average temperature of 9.0ºC.
Rainfall was in short supply. March saw 31.6mm of rain, just 68.4% of the long‑term average, making it the 24th driest March since records began in 1954. Quite a change from the winter months, December 2025 to February 2026 which saw the second wettest winter recorded since records began in 1954, Winter 2025 - 2026, a season dominated by persistent rainfall
All long‑term averages are based on the 30-year period, 1991–2020, though it should be noted that maximum air temperature readings between September and December 2017 remain absent due to the Met Office’s removal of mercury thermometers.