What is going on with Dorset's weather?

In the past month Dorset's seen a heatwave, snow, hail and rain. Temperatures have hit 21 degrees, and they've also been as low as -1.

Some people might be confused how we can be on the brink of summer one moment, only to retreat back into winter.

To add to the confusion, this time last year many of us were out enjoying the sun with a week of highs reaching 23.

But, it's all quite normal according to a meteorologist. Shaun Lovett manages Dorset Snow on Twitter. He said:

"It's not as rare as people think for it to snow in April.

"There's a big difference between it snowing in the spring and snowing in the winter, and in some ways it actually is more likeyl to snow in the spring.

"That's because the air that comes into the UK in spring time is often a lot drier. In the winter you've got lots of wet air masses, and wet air masses bring high humidity, high humidity brings high dew points, when you've got high dew points it actually is a lot harder to snow.

"Whereas it can be 1 degree in the middle of winter and it can rain, that's because the humidity is so high. Where as in the spring... the air is so much drier and the dew points are so much lower."

But temperatures are creeping up and Shaun says climate change is noticeably changing Dorset's weather.

"Definitely climate change is a factor. We're regularly seeing temperatures in the the high teens, nudging 20 degrees, after the mid-point of March. That seems to be a regular occurence now."

He says we can hopefully expect warmer weather soon.

"It looks like we're almost there now and hopefully spring is just round the corner now."