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Posted
  • Location: Islington, C. London.
  • Location: Islington, C. London.
Posted

Coming up to five years since this remarkable February.

February 2020 smashed the record for wettest ever February, averaging 169.5mm. The previous record was February 1833 which had 158.6mm. It was so wet that it would make the third wettest January despite having two (leap year) less days. It was also a very mild with a CET of 6.5.

The month began unsettled but very mild, indeed nothing out of the ordinary for a modern February. It even settled down for a time, bringing some mist and fog in places and some places were lucky with some frost around the 5th. This would be the last settled period for a while!

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Storm Ciara brought widespread wet and windy conditions on the 9th, with gusts reaching 97 mph at the Needles and 70-80 mph inland. A squall band caused intense thundery downpours. NW England and N Wales saw the highest rainfall, with Honister Pass recording 177.0 mm in 24 hours. A gust of 83 mph hit Aberdaron, causing tree damage and flooding.

I remember the 9th vividly. The rain was so intensely heavy I remember seeing it drift in clouds and just lash against everything causing flash flooding. One of the heaviest rainfalls I can remember and the only to ever occur in the winter IIRC.

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Storm Dennis impacted the British Isles on the 15th, with low pressure south of Iceland intensifying to 922 mb by 1800 GMT.

On the 16th, as the low moved eastward, MSL pressure dropped to 957.8 mb at Stornoway by 1800 GMT. Widespread rain and cloud led to a mild night, with temperatures reaching 14.4°C at Weybourne at 0300 GMT. Strong gusts, peaking at 84 mph at Mumbles. Flooding affected parts of England, Wales, and southern Scotland, with south Wales experiencing severe incidents. A record 624 flood warnings were issued across England. 180.4mm fell in the recording day at Honister Pass in Cumbria on the 19th-20th.

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A colder but still unsettled end to the month. Snow to areas as far south as central Ireland, South Wales, the Midlands, and Norfolk on the 25th. Rain, with some snow, crossed England and Wales overnight, bringing light sleet or snow to southeastern areas on the 27th. 

The 27th did see falling snow where I was living in New Ash Green (NW Kent on the N Downs) during the afternoon.

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  • Like 3
Posted
  • Location: Coventry, 95m asl
  • Weather Preferences: Snow Nov - Feb. Thunderstorms, 20-29°C and sun any time!
  • Location: Coventry, 95m asl
Posted (edited)

Met office actual and anomaly rainfall maps:

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2 papers on the floods during this month:

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2019-20 floods.pdf February 2020 storms SW England.pdf

Edited by Metwatch
Posted
  • Location: Hampshire
  • Weather Preferences: Warm-by-day sunny thundery summers , short cold snowy winters.
  • Location: Hampshire
Posted (edited)

The nightmare month to beat all others.

I have to admit I have no recollection at all of that transient high on the 5th, I just recall the month being an endless barrage of lows with almost no breathing space in between. I remember only one exception, a mid-week day perhaps mid-month when we had a brief and very transient northerly.

Tropical maritime air was almost absent I believe but despite that, Heathrow still managed a mean maximum of above 11C, pushing extremely mild status certainly against the older averages.

My most hated month of all time, and by some margin, as I have stated elsewhere. It just had that "perfect" combination of mild, dull, and very wet. Other months were milder and wetter but this month had the worst combination of all three. For example Jan and Feb 2014 were considerably sunnier and Feb 2024 seemed a lot less wet and less gloomy.

Edited by Summer8906
  • Like 1
Posted
  • Location: Islington, C. London.
  • Location: Islington, C. London.
Posted

 Summer8906 that’s funny because February 2024 really stood out to me for just how gloomy it was barely any sunshine. It felt like every day was cloudy with heavy rain and a higher between 10 and 15°C.  February 2020 I have a vague recollections of the 5th, it brought a seasonably chilly feeling day and I remember being in the car during the evening with a pretty sunset. I also remember a sunny day on the 7th.

I remember absolutely biblical rainfall on the 9th. I don’t know if you’ve ever played many video games but you know the fake rain effect especially in older games where clouds would seemingly blow in the air to increase the feel of heavy rain well that’s what it looked like. slamming onto everything and turning the communal grass outside my living room into a lake. The rest of the month is mostly a blur, but I do remember snow falling in the afternoon of the 27th.

I do remember feeling that it was extremely wet because I was on the forums at that time, but I don’t remember feeling depressed by the weather strangely enough. I found February 2024 far worse. I think that show that February 2024 at least locally was far far duller

  • Like 2
Posted
  • Location: Hampshire
  • Weather Preferences: Warm-by-day sunny thundery summers , short cold snowy winters.
  • Location: Hampshire
Posted (edited)

 LetItSnow I do remember Feb 2024 being persistently cloudy with mostly Tm air, but the depth of the gloom seemed less than in 2020. I think it might have been something to do with most frontal systems going through at night in 2024 and by day in 2020, meaning we frequently got the real intense gloom of a passing frontal system in the earlier year. Indeed I remember a good number of dry nights in 2020, in contrast to the days.

I don't remember either big storm producing notably heavy rainfall, just persistent rain all day and strong winds, though less strong than say Darragh recently. In fact I was surprised that 2020 broke records for rainfall as none of the rain was that heavy, it just kept falling all month on the vast majority of days - but I guess the sheer persistence of the rainfall was what made it such a wet month. I seem to remember Jan 2014 having heavier outbreaks of rain (but as I said, I disliked that month less as it was sunnier).

Can't remember any snowfall (and just one cold day, as I have mentioned) though I do remember the weather becoming ever slightly less unsettled at the end, though by that time the shadow of Covid was looming large.

 

 

Edited by Summer8906
  • Like 1
Posted
  • Location: Islington, C. London.
  • Location: Islington, C. London.
Posted

 Summer8906 We'll all be having fonder weather memories on the solstice when I reinvigorate the spring 2020 thread for its 5 year anniversary. Just not good memories of anything else! What a strange twist of irony such a beautiful spring in such a terrible time. The weather often seems to play tricks during interesting times historically.

  • Like 2
Posted
  • Location: Cleeve, North Somerset
  • Weather Preferences: Continental winters & summers.
  • Location: Cleeve, North Somerset
Posted

 Summer8906 Interestingly, Feb 2020 was quite sunny here, much more akin to Jan and Feb 2014, so much so that I can even remember (rather sadly) the dates of the month that were dull! 😅 January, despite having more anticyclonic influence, was actually duller. 

Posted
  • Location: Islington, C. London.
  • Location: Islington, C. London.
Posted

 MP-R Despite January being drier it actually featured more standout weather in my mind. There was a vicious windstorm I think around the 12th-16th- time which knocked the power out of my entire village, street lights included. I was home alone since the other person I was living with was away for a weekend and I didn't have a key to lock the house and the lights went out and darkness descended with this howling wind, it was like something out of a horror film. It also produced an incredibly thick and wet fog due to a very mild (overhead) anticyclone some time around the 22nd-ish. I remember that month feeling very mild due to its dank feel, yet February I don't remember feeling as mild despite identical CET.

Posted
  • Location: Cleeve, North Somerset
  • Weather Preferences: Continental winters & summers.
  • Location: Cleeve, North Somerset
Posted

 LetItSnow Yes the notably high anticyclone from the 17th onwards started sunny and very frosty, but became very dirty from the 22nd onwards as it weakened. I remember a number of dull dark misty foggy days around that time too.

  • Like 1
Posted
  • Location: Coventry, 95m asl
  • Weather Preferences: Snow Nov - Feb. Thunderstorms, 20-29°C and sun any time!
  • Location: Coventry, 95m asl
Posted
1 hour ago, Summer8906 said:

Feb 2024 seemed a lot less wet and less gloomy

There were some lovely skies here on quite a few occasions so probably why it felt that way. I counted around 13-14 days with either a sunrise, sunset or something else interesting like a rainbow

  • Like 1
Posted
  • Location: Near Romsey, Hampshire
  • Weather Preferences: ☀️
  • Location: Near Romsey, Hampshire
Posted
WWW.NPR.ORG

Propelled by the jet stream, Flight BA112 topped a ground speed of 800 mph, by one expert's estimate. It traveled from New York's JFK to London's Heathrow in 4 hours, 56 minutes overnight Saturday.


This period is associated with one of the strongest sustained jet streams of all time, as mentioned in the attached article. I did a NYC-London flight around then, albeit not the record ones (still was only a little over 5 hours).

currently weather pattern is pretty similar 

Posted
  • Location: Hampshire
  • Weather Preferences: Warm-by-day sunny thundery summers , short cold snowy winters.
  • Location: Hampshire
Posted (edited)

 LetItSnow I guess the best example of that is four notably cold and snowy Januaries, and three notably cold winters, in the six war years, mind you I'd rate that period as grim rather than interesting.

Edited by Summer8906
Posted
  • Location: Hampshire
  • Weather Preferences: Warm-by-day sunny thundery summers , short cold snowy winters.
  • Location: Hampshire
Posted (edited)

 LetItSnow I don't remember February feeling spectacularly mild, yet it evidently was with a mean max of 11.1C in Heathrow, so presumably even higher further south and west (perhaps 12C in coastal Hampshire and 13C in Devon and Cornwall?)

I think it was so windy and wet that it rarely "felt" mild.

January I just remember being near-constantly dull, drizzly Tm air until that brief window of 4 or 5 days when it was sunny and frosty. Also remember it then turning dry but gloomy before becoming very wet at the end of the month. 31 January was a particularly wet and foul day and IIRC the wet period at the end was enough to send the month above average for rainfall despite rainfall being mostly light early in the month.

Edited by Summer8906
Posted
  • Location: Hampshire
  • Weather Preferences: Warm-by-day sunny thundery summers , short cold snowy winters.
  • Location: Hampshire
Posted (edited)

 MP-R Maybe you got slightly luckier with the timings of the fronts, or maybe it's just the as-yet-unexplained Hampshire blob of gloom doing its usual thing.

To be fair I remember a good number of dry and even clear evenings which suggests that it could have been sunnier had the timings of fronts been different. For example if the two big storms had gone through overnight, that might have had quite a profound effect on two weekends of the month (though I can't remember whether each storm was followed by a clearer period immediately afterwards or whether it remained cloudy and damp; I certainly don't remember the Mondays following the two storms being sunny suggesting that some other system was close behind each).

Edited by Summer8906
Posted
  • Location: Cheshire
  • Location: Cheshire
Posted

I recall Whalley, near Blackburn, had terrible flooding problems just before I visited Blackburn for an activity weekend (fortunately indoors). The journey home on the Sunday was a nightmare. I also recall taking a dog for a walk on the Monday and finding our local stream had flooded the valley and rendered it impassible. This was later in February and, at that time, we were still unaware of the dark days to come the following month (pandemic rather than weather).

Posted
  • Location: Lincoln, Lincolnshire
  • Weather Preferences: Sunshine, convective precipitation, snow, thunderstorms, "episodic" months.
  • Location: Lincoln, Lincolnshire
Posted

I remember February 2020 quite well, I was living in Exeter and it was wet and changeable and windy almost throughout, but surprisingly there were five days with wintry showers (hail and sleet mostly) from polar maritime air masses. Generally though the north-westerly on the 10th-12th following Storm Ciara disappointed, it looked like it had potential to bring snow quite widely to low levels, at least in the north, like we had seen at times from polar maritime air masses in the winters of 2014/15, 2017/18 and 2018/19, but generally it was sleety at low levels even in the north.

I recall the storms Ciara and Dennis which brought exceptional rainfall totals (I called the latter "Dennis the Menace"). I also recall an overnight thunderstorm in Exeter from a southerly tracking low on the 13th, which produced plenty of lightning.

Overall I have to say that I disliked February 2024 a lot more than 2020.

  • Like 1

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