Friday, 01 February 2019
February Starts With A Dusting of Snow
January certainly departed on a cold note with the temperature remaining below freezing all day.
Temperature & Wind Chill Records 30 January - 01 February 2019
It remained misty all day long too along with a temperature of around -2.5°C (27.5°F) for most of the daylight hours. The coldest was -3.1°C (26.4°F) at 18:40.
Although it was the coldest day of the year it wasn't a record breaker. It was the coldest January day since 25 January 2013 when the temperature fell to -4.8°C (23.4°F) but to find a colder day, we only have to go back to late last February when the "Beast from the East" struck. On the 28 February 2018 the average daily temperature was -4.2°C (24.4°F) with a low of -5.7°C or 21.7°F.
February has started off with a very light dusting of snow.
The bird bath was well and truly frozen over and it looked like someone had already been trying to get a drink.
Some hot water soon thawed it out but I'll need to keep checking it throughout the day to see if it freezes over again.
Sunday, 03 February 2019
Coldest Night of the Year
Dawn on Sunday morning produced our lowest temperature of the year as the thermometer plunged to -5.2°C or 22.6°F.
Temperature Records 01-03 February 2019
It's not quite the lowest temperature I've recorded in February, that record is still held by 11-February 2012 with -5.9°C or 21.4°F. However, it's still cold enough to move it into my list of top twenty lowest temperature since 2010.
Top Twenty Lowest Temperatures Since 2010
A few weeks ago I compared a couple of weather model outputs to show just how much the output could vary over a 10 day period. It's worth a quick look at this morning's output for the GFS and GEM models especially regarding the low overnight temperatures.
GFS (Top) and GEM (Bottom) Output for 03-05 February 2019
Whilst neither model has accurately modelled the temperature, at least the GEM suggests something rather unusual. The GFS model suggests nothing other than a slight frost, nothing out of the ordinary for a February night. The GEM is suggesting another cold night Monday into Tuesday, so it will be interesting to see if it continues this trend over the next day or so as the output updates.
Our newly purchased seed potatoes will be staying bagged up in the garage, hopefully protected from the cold temperatures, rather than moving into our unheated greenhouse to chit. There will be plenty of time for them to chit before planting time if they move into the greenhouse in March.