It's going to be a lousy summer
Spring will be much warmer than normal, some of Britain's leading forecasters said today.
In London and the South-East, the average spring temperature will be up 1.3 degrees centigrade on average for March, April and May.
Dr Mark Saunders and Chris Fletcher of the Benfield Greig Hazard Research Centre at University College London say they have developed a way to predict average spring temperatures at any UK location.
"There is a 97 per cent probability that the Central England Temperature for spring 2002 will be warmer than average," they say.
But the prediction tends to support a Met Office pronouncement that this pleasant spring will be followed by an unusually wet summer.
Earlier this month, the Met Office said that this summer could be one of the wettest and most unpredictable in years, thanks to changes in the patterns of wind and ocean currents in the Pacific.
Winds in the Pacific have been disrupting the normal flow of ocean currents in what could be a precursor of El Nino, the periodic "flip" of the Pacific trade winds that affects weather across the world.
Michael Davey, seasonal prediction manager for the Met Office, said: "These changes affect the atmospheric circulation causing droughts and floods in equatorial regions.
"Europe gets less of an effect, but they make our weather much wetter and less settled."
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