February 1779

[Optimus Prime]

Just been trowling through the Metoffice Hadley CET figures and came across a striking month. February 1779 had an average temperature of 7.9c!

Despite such a warm February, January was actually quite cold at 2.9c which probably rescued it from being the warmest winter ever.

December 1778; 6.1c (+1.5c)

January 1779; 2.9 (-0.9)

February 1779; 7.9 (+4.2c)

Winter as a whole was mild with a CET off 5.6 (+1.6c) possibly up there in the top ten warmest winters since 1659.

Does anyone have statistics of that winter? It had everything from prolonged mild in December and February to a cold January sandwiched inbetween.

[Weather-history]

Winter 1778-79 is joint 24th mildest winter ever recorded.

The period 6th-28th February had a CET average of 8.3

Besides the remarkable February, another remarkable feature about early 1779 is how dry it was.

January, February and March 1779 had a combined a rainfall average for England and Wales of just 44.4mm

2nd driest January on record, was followed by the 8th driest February on record which was followed by the 7th driest March on record.

July 1779 was very wet, 10th wettest July on record. It was also a very warm month: The modern day equivalent would be August 2004.

August and September 1779 were warm to hot months.

Not surprisingly, 1779 was a very warm year with an annual CET of 10.4

1779 was a very interesting year

Edited January 2, 2007 by Mr_Data

[Optimus Prime]

Thanks Mr.D. I'm sure a February that mild with turn up again sooner or later