Wednesday, 16 January 2019
Warmest and Windiest
The start of the new year means a fresh set of highest and lowest weather records for the year. Sunday set a couple of those producing the mildest and windiest day of the year.
Temperature Records 01-15 January 2019 (with Highest & Lowest values since 2009)
The temperature reached 11.4°C (52.5°F) on Sunday afternoon, the mildest this year, but accompanied by a gales force wind it wasn't the nicest of days. It was windy enough to make it into my top twenty list of windiest days since 2010. Even though it was the twelfth windiest day in almost ten years, as far as I know, it wasn't due to any named storm.
Almost half way through the month and January is turning out to be a mild month with the average temperature for January a couple of degrees Celsius above what we might expect. Nightime temperatures in particular have been well above average with some overnight temperatures exceeding average January daytime values.
Outside there are the first hopeful signs of spring as early flowering bulbs push through the surface of the soil.
It's nice to see the bulbs emerging but I'm guessing we've still got the worst of the winter weather to come.
Friday, 18 January 2019
January Weather Arrives
There has most certainly been a change in the weather to more normal January temperatures. There doesn't appear to be anything worse than we might expect in January in the weather model output but there are some distinct differences in the forecasts as can be seen below.
The top forecast is from the GFS model and it doesn't forecast any below 0°C (32.0°F) temperatures before the 26th of the month. The bottom forecast uses the GEM model output and it is going for a much colder forecast over the next 10 days. Friday morning's actual temperature fell to -2.8°C (27.0°F) more in line with that GEM forecast. I'll keep a note and see which forecast is more accurate by the end of the month.
A couple of days ago I noticed a rose in the front border had a bud. I thought it must be left over from summer and didn't give it any chance of opening up. Wrong!
It managed to open up before the colder weather arrived.