AderynCoch

I was in Ukraine that day (Ľviv) and it was 16C!

What about a snooker referee getting stung by a wasp?

January has been above-average so far here in Bratislava but not stupidly so. Slap-bang under the Euro slug, it's been bone-dry (1.4mm so far) with a fair bit of fog and ice (ice-day yesterday, only just above freezing today). A really dire situation snow-wise though. The 00z ECM is teasing us with snowmaggedon on Sunday only for the 12z to give us a bit of sleet instead.

Saw it low down in the east just before I left. Back in Slovakia now with thick fog.

Higher than the UK January record. Bizarre.

I'm back here over Christmas so of course there's nothing of interest. The deep oranges and browns on the charts have been following me around Europe all season so far. I leave on the 10th next month, so you might get some cold weather then.

Early-blooming plants are going to face problems later in the season if cold finally arrives. But of course only coldies should feel bad about their weather preferences.

Of course, Eastern Europe finally turns cold after treating me to mild sweatiness, rain and frostlessness. Five days in Ukraine and it's been horrid even by UK standards (16C? Really?). I know it's not great the UK at the moment but it's been warmer here the entire time. I couldn't have had worse luck from a weather perspective.

Lashing it down today.

10C tomorrow here in Kiev, 11C on Monday. This "winter" really is taking the biscuit. Today was "only" 8C (still well above average for here). I'm flying to the UK on Monday, so there's any chance of Christmas cold down the drain. Just watch Central and Eastern Europe suddenly go into the freezer at the same time.

Try 16C instead! This must be record-breaking for the time of year. I was walking around in a shirt this afternoon because even just a light, unzipped hoody was making me sweat. This would be bonkers Christmas weather for the UK never mind flippin' Ukraine! Ľviv is a very nice city though.

Another bust in Bratislava. Snowed for a while yesterday evening but failed to get more to than about 1cm. That's probably it until after Christmas. What a terrible start to winter. And that's without the epic Ukraine fail.

You think that's bad? I'm off to Ukraine on the same date to experience some proper Eastern-European winter. The forecast temperature? 14C. Fourteen.

I'm flying to Ľviv in nine days. It's 11C there at the moment. I saw a snow map of Slovakia this morning. Košice had 13cm and nowhere else was above 5cm (nearby Trebišov had only 2cm and traditionally-wintry Poprad up near the High Tatras had a big fat zero). They seem to have been blessed for the past week, as it's been too marginal to the west and positively warm to the east.

It's been a crap start to winter in Bratislava. About 1cm of snow on Monday which barely lasted until the next day. There was proper snow on the nearby hills all week but it must be melting now. A chance of more snow on Thursday at least. I'm more concerned about my trip to Ukraine on the 18th - it's been toasty there recently by their standards.

First proper snow of the season here this morning.

It's worth remembering that those anomalies are for the entire month of November, not just the month up to the 17th. So anywhere with over 57% (which is almost everywhere away from NW Britain) is running at wetter than average.

That's the one that sticks with me. Number One late January through early February.

Should be -4C here tonight, a week after reaching 26C. I love cold and frosty Halloweens.

The big cold front over Europe has passed through, finally bringing the Indian summer to an end. It got up to 27.3C in Kráľová pri Senci (just east of Bratislava) on the 24th, apparently the latest on record such a high temperature has been recorded in Slovakia. Körösszakáli in Hungary reached 29.1C on the same day! Currently 10C and overcast with light rain. This week should bring single-digit highs and air frosts.

Someone's turned the blowtorch on here. 24C yesterday, 23C today. Hurbanovo (holder of Slovakia's all-time highest temperature) got up to 26C. 28C in Serbia and Romania.

I stayed in Alcudia many moons ago. Was treated to a number of different displays, from overhead storms with close lightning strikes to distant, silent light shows over the sea. This was in August mind.

The milder and wetter it is the worse it is for me. Worst of all is when such weather dominates Christmas and the run-up to it. I felt ill looking at that chart from December 2015 - together with November absolutely the worst festive period I've ever experienced, and one I can hardly conceive ever being outdone. I'm not that bothered about darkness and lack of sunshine really as long as it's cold. For me it makes it feel more seasonal. When it's mild though it can pretty trying, like last Christmas when it was something like 11C every day and 8C at night under an unremitting grey blanket. I'm hard-pressed to even call that "weather". Thankfully now my experience of UK winters is restricted to a couple of weeks around Christmas time. In Bratislava the main bugbear is slush and ice: it snows quite often but also often thaws partially when the temperatures creep above zero. Still, if the weather here isn't up to my standards the nearby hills usually are. I can also head north into colder regions quite easily. In any case having spent most of my winters in the snow-vacuum that is Liverpool I can't really complain. Can't wait to experience Ukraine the week before Christmas either.

Raining here today but it's been very dry of late - 52.1mm in the first nine days of September but only 3mm for the rest of the month. The Danube is at a low level, exposing sandbanks, and a small offshoot of the river near here has dried up completely! Might see our first air frost on Monday night.

I remember watching the Forest vs Spurs game on MOTD. It got so bad you couldn't even see the orange ball. I think they only lasted 15 minutes. There used to be a clip of it on YouTube but it's been taken down