AderynCoch

8.3C in 1916, which incidentally was also the mildest January (7.5C). This year the first 10 days are provisionally at 6.9C - so actually a fair bit short of the record. If anyone's interested the coldest first 10 days of January for the CET were in 1814 (-3.0C).

It's always hot here in summer. No thunderstorms surprisingly.

Sorry, I missed this comment! I've been here since the end of October. I'm flying to Brisbane on Monday and I should be working nearby pretty soon. Looks like we're getting all that rain which has finally decided to leave Blighty alone. Then again, it is the wet season (though December was dry).

Gangnam Style is the musical equivalent of Stalin's Great Purge. Greetings from 2013. December here was very dry until the final day, when it rained like nobody's business. The wet season has taken a long time to get going.

4.3

Long-range forecasts aren't meant to be taken as gospel. Anyone who does so is a fool.

Interesting how many recent years there are in that list.

A high of 34.3C here today. The hottest Christmas Day I've ever experienced by some distance!

Nadolig Llawen i bawb ar Netweather! Mae hi newydd droi hanner nos yma. Merry Christmas to all on Netweather! It's just turned midnight here.

Some northeastern areas (such as Aberdeen) were duller in June 2007 than the previous December. This year not only does it look like occurring in the same year but it's also going to be much more widespread. For sunshine totals, the first half of summer this year was phenomenally bad. My jaw still hits the floor when I recall the fact that Edinburgh was stuck with under two hours of sunshine in July until about the 12th or 13th!

169.5 hours here so far. Beat that.

Thanks! It's worth noting that 1945 saw both Perth's coldest Christmas Day and Hobart's warmest (unless it's another mistake ). It would be interesting to see a chart for that day, as I suspect there was a large low over Australia drawing hot northerly air on its eastern fringe and cold southerly air to the west.

There's a mistake in there somewhere - Canberra is listed as having both records in the same year.

"Will that blizzard in America come over here?"

Travellers In Space And Time was one of my favourite books when I was a kid. It gave me a sense of just how far away 10, 100 & 1000 light years are. I've still got a planisphere for 51.5 degrees north (London's latitude) which came with one of his starter packs. It's hard to believe he's gone. When someone has been old since you can remember you tend to think they'll live forever; alas time catches up with all of us at some point. R.I.P.

Hvae you already forgotten the 39C you received on Thursday? Or is that too hot?

Buckinghamshire is in SE England surely.

Oh dear Stephen, only 2.1C my heart bleeds, try living here in +25.0C land.

I go and say that and we've just had a heavy shower.

2.7

Thanks! It doesn't really feel that humid up here yet, certainly not as humid as equivalent temperatures in the UK. The wet season seems to be taking its time arriving: the second week of November was quite unsettled but we've had no real rain since then.

That goes to show how Moscow's winters are more about persistence of snow than quantity. 12cm was easily beaten in many parts of Britain in November 2010, and I myself saw about 15cm in Sheffield in November 2004. Big falls of snow are uncommon in Moscow, despite snow itself being the norm.

I'm planning to go to Mildura for seasonal work around January/February time. Am I crazy?

18th November 2004 in Sheffield. It had been quite mild but then that evening the heavy rain suddenly turned to snow and we ended up with about 15cm.

I was living in the hills of west Sheffield (right on the edge of the Peak District) at this time and this was a cracker of a cold spell. We got the first flakes on the 19th but the snow really got going on the night of the 20th/21st and peaked on the 22nd/23rd. We had about a foot of level snow, and it didn't completely thaw until well into March (there was still some snow about in the second half of the month). I really wish I was up there during those mammoth snowfalls at the beginning of December 2010. It must have been amazing.