Earthshine

I don't think anyone was contesting that. A SSW is a strong indicator for the emergence of high latitude blocking, which can bring very cold weather. The last few very cold March's have been preceded by a SSW so there is certainly a link.

Wow, thought I seriously overestimated the CET considered the hype at the start of the month. The weighting towards warmer is just so strong these days that despite a SSW we can't even manage below the 1961-1990 average.

No upper limit for daytime temperatures for me. Overnight with 30°C is a bit too hot though but thankfully doesn't happen in the UK (at least not yet!). For running long distance I wouldn't run in anything higher than 34°C, gets a bit uncomfortable otherwise. I am a bit of lizard though and cannot handle cold!

Within a week the Sun has travelled 2° northwards. The land of the midnight Sun is rapidly expanding in the northern hemisphere and the Sun climbs higher in the sky by around 0.3° every day. Meanwhile the Earth recedes away from the Sun and begins to slow down, reaching it's maximum distance from the Sun in early July. This elliptical orbit means that summer in the northern hemisphere is longer than summer in the southern hemisphere by a couple of days. The length of a solar day decreases to a minimum around the equinoxes (23 hr 59 min 43 s) and will increase again around the June solstice to 24 hr 12 s.

I was looking at some outdated charts, my bad!

Already seeing some leafing here in Exeter, even on small trees. Quite a bit of blossom near my house too. Just need some more sunshine to go along with it! Could potentially reach 17-18°C on Thursday.

Revised my guess down from 7.4°C to 6.4°C in response to the SSW impacts... wondering if that's too low now

Sea surface temperatures are above normal. That and also the arctic has warmed quite substantially.

Many reservoirs in the southwest are still in a pretty dire state despite the recent weather. Slightly worrying considering we could spring turning drier and much warmer according to the Met Office contingency planners.

Sea levels have risen about 3mm/yr: https://climate.metoffice.cloud/

Potential for a warm spell late March early April. A few warm runs appearing.

9.9C and 35mm

Interesting point you make there. Did some research and you're right, twilight is shortest around the equinox. It's slightly longer around the December solstice but substantially longer around the June solstice. The sun follows quite a shallow curve overnight and spends the entirety of it's time above -18° in the UK - night never gets darker than astronomical twilight in the UK in June and even nautical twilight (>-12°) further north. Above around 60°N civil twilight is the darkest.

Equilux is actually an approximation in many parts of the world. It's calculated assuming refraction in a ICAO standard atmosphere (15°C, 1013 hPa, etc.). In the presence of inversion layers and strong thermal gradients the refraction effect can be stronger, extending sunsets/sunrises by up to 30 seconds or so. I did write some ray-tracing code that calculates the apparent position of the sun with a particular atmosphere (e.g. hot and dry, cold and humid, etc). It assumes spherical symmetry so it will differ slightly from the true oblate spheroid earth.

Exeter has been abysmally grey recently. I read somewhere that 13 of the last 15 days have recorded 0 hours of sunshine.

I'll take a February 2019 style winter spell of weather over the grotty crap we got today. 1.5°C and heavy rain has got to be the worst weather possible.

I'd like to revise my guess for 6.5C and 40mm please

7.4C and 50 mm please

Not liking the idea of a cold March. Might have to make the most of the mild next 10 days or so!

Maximum CET could get rather high over the next 10 days or so if forecasts are to be believed. Temperatures regularly above 10C by day with perhaps even getting as high as 15C if conditions become just right in places.

For a cold-blooded lad like me I need my hot weather

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Well I'd still say 12°C is mild for February. Also the mean is still around average even after the milder weather next week.

Looking like a very useable period of weather with high pressure to the south bringing mild and bright weather!

26th February 2019 I believe