reef

It also kills off the chance of shower activity for a lot of areas as what was a direct northerly / north-easterly is now a slack north-westerly. Not bad for Scotland, the north-west and Cheshire gap, but everywhere else is cold and dry. The low approaching from the south-west will kill it off quickly too.

January is perhaps the most disappointing of the winter months for me nowadays. If you take out 2010 and 2013, there have only been four days of lying snow in the last 20 years here - one each in 2007, 2008, 2017 and 2019. All of these were less than 1cm. Even with 2010 and 2013 included, that's only a third of the years with lying snow. The average number of days with snow lying at 0900 has dropped to just 1.5 days in January now. For some reason it is the least snowy of the three winter months. Its slim pickings but 2010 is probably my favourite, closely followed by 2004. 2022, though snowless ranks highly as it was cool, dry and sunny with few gales.

Thats nonsense. Why would a weather enthusiast look for that? If anything, it's the rarity of cold, snowy weather that makes it more special. Weather enthusiasts by their very nature will covert interesting or unusual weather. If it gets rarer, the search for it will still go on.

I would love to know this also. Similar quirks have happened in the past with warm months/periods. Take for example 1967 - 1976: every single January was above the relevant 30 year average, yet from 1965 - 1979 every April was below average. In the period 1971-1976 only five months were more than 1C above the 30 year average outside of winter and all five were in Summers 1975 and 1976. Those two summers also contained the only 4 months above 17C in the 22 year period from 1960-1982. Why were the only 17C months in two years. By pure chance they should have been spread out more.

The lack of truly clear and sunny days in the last 3 months has been remarkable. It has just been relentlessly overcast, wet and windy weather. The night time minimum temperatures also reflect this as the last air frost here was on 6th December, so now 31 days without so much as a frost yet again during what should be the peak winter period. Its just a continuation of Autumn. We actually did quite well compare to other areas in December, but still turned out a duller than average month. We had solar panels installed last January and its telling that we haven't had a "perfect day" i.e clear from dawn until dusk since early September now. All three months from Oct - Dec were down on where they should have been.

It needs to be located 1.25m above the ground. That is the 'standard' height for temperature measurement. That way it'll get a bit more airflow around it and record a more accurate temperature.

That's one run from 00z this morning and it was an outlier for Reykjavík with SLP being too low suggesting it was incorrect. The 12z runs by and large don't suggest this. High pressure almost certainly will be there in a week's time but that's all the detail we can tell for now. Things will change and vary.

I think what will be interesting to see over the next few years / decade is whether the current jump in warmth is temporary and if we return to trend (currently around +1.1 - 1.2C) or if we've gone through a step change and see an acceleration in the temperature rise.

Just four sub-3C months since 1997 and they all came in the 28 month period between Dec 2010 and March 2013. It shows how rare genuinely cold months are these days.

This was a very decent event in my neck of the woods as we were right in the firing line for the snow showers. It was quite memorable due to being over New Year. We had about 8-10cm in total and it stayed on the ground until the 5th. It pretty much marked the end of the snowy 1994-1997 period and wasn't surpassed in depth until January 2004. It was quite a cold period too, with the temperature not rising above 4C until the 12th. There was no further lying snow for the rest of the winter and only one day the winter after.

Heathrow has used an automatic Kipp and Zonen sunshine monitor since 2006 which under reads so an adjustment has to be made to give readings comparable to the older sunshine recorders. The figures on that link are the raw, unadjusted figures.

25.8mm of rain since yesterday evening now from this. Little wind to speak of but flooding everywhere.

Global temperatures tend to be warmer in El Nino years, so it increases the chance we'll be warm. Its not always the case though.

Yes it was I believe. I think without December 2022 it would have been 31 consecutive months, the last below average before being May 2021. With regards to 2024, there's a good chance it will also be 11+C as we're in an El Nino year. That three 11C years on the trot could certainly happen.

This weather is just the pits. Another dark, overcast day with relentless rain. We've already had about 20mm since yesterday evening and its still coming down. Hopefully this cold, dry and frosty spell comes off. Bonus points if there's sunny days too as the last three months have been terrible.

The way January is going, it's going to have a total above the 1991-2020 average before the first week is out at this rate! We've already had over 20mm and we're only just over 36 hours in!

Here it is in all its glory: We did quite well, but it was still rubbish!

We somehow hit 57 hours here, which is 95% of average. Despite coming out top its still felt dull. I imagine it's felt much like December 2002 did here which had similarly low levels of sun like many places this month.

We usually open a "thoughts" thread for winter and summer a bit earlier. For Spring and Autumn it's usually around the middle of the previous season so in about a couple of weeks.

Milder and wetter than average: 5.4C and 106mm

Now up to 835.6mm, so comfortably 2nd wettest in 43 years here.

Up to 826.8mm for us now, which is 4th wettest behind 2019 (859.0mm), 1980 (831.7mm) and 2012 (827.0mm). Depending on how much the cold front drops later, we could reach second place.

It most certainly was not. It was the wettest year on record here with 859mm (2023 currently has 827mm). April, May and June were all colder than average. April didnt surpass 12C until the 18th and only 10 days reached 20C before July. Summer had 22 hours less sunshine than 2023 and Autumn was just atrocious - 437mm of rainfall with all three months recording 110mm+. It was then followed by an awful winter which was mild and devoid of even much in the way of frosts. It was grim.

Apart from Friday it's looking pretty mild in the CET zone aswell. The thing is, even a cooler day like today will end up mild on the figures as it'll be in double figures by 0900 tomorrow, so today's max temps will be recorded then. It's very likely we'll finish close to 7C now.

It's a weather enthusiast's forum. I don't understand why people join when they don't want any weather at all!