ossettweather.com
Thursday, 22 December 2011
December heatwave
Thursday produced another very mild day for December with the temperature managing 12.9°C. Interspersed with some sunny spells it was a brilliant day for December.
West Yorkshire saw some unusual cloud formations yesterday. I grabbed the picture above from my web cam yesterday morning as I thought it was a bit unusual. However this wasn’t very impressive compared with the cloud formations photographed around West Yorkshire.
Other local pictures of these cloud formation can be found at the BBC web site by clicking here.
Friday, 23 December 2011
A wet day
At times we had some heavy rain today, enough to make it our wettest day for just about 10 months as 11.2mm of rain fell. It was most rain in a day since the 26th February 2011 when we had 11.4mm.
Last autumn with our freezers full we still had some apples to store. As a bit of an experiment we filled up the salad compartments of our old fridge freezer in the garage to see just how long we might be able to keep these apples. There were several varieties and all kept well stored in the fridge. We had enough apples to fill all the shelves with apples too. We’ve been using the apples to eat and make pies throughout autumn and into winter.
These Golden Delicious from the salad drawer have been made into apple tarts for a Christmas treat. A few sultanas and a hint of nutmeg was added to the fruit to give it that festive taste.
Saturday, 24 December 2011
What a difference a year makes!
Christmas Eve was another mild day with some decent sunny periods. Last year the run up to Christmas was bitterly cold with daily average temperatures below freezing. Our pond was well and truly iced over with only the filtered water keeping a small part of the surface ice free.
Frozen pond 24th December 2010
No such problems this year with the mild spell of weather and daily average temperatures around 10°C higher than last year our pond is certainly ice free.
Ice free pond 24th December 2011
Last year’s picture looks much more Christmassy and this year’s picture isn’t helped with the building works going on to provide a base for our new summerhouse.
Sunday, 25 December 2011
Mild and windy
Christmas Day turned out to be mild and windy. Even allowing for the recent mild days it turned out to be the mildest with the temperature reaching a maximum of 13.4°C in the early evening. I’ve got no idea where that stands in the league table of temperatures for Christmas Day other than it’s much warmer than last year.
Our starlings have found the fat balls and enjoyed tucking in to their Christmas dinner too. I saw on television last week that I’m supposed to arrange our bird feeders in such a way that the birds don’t squabble over food using up valuable energy reserves. Is that even possible with starlings? They seem to arrive in a flock and feed in a flock.
The squabble at the end of the video is slowed down by a factor of 10 and you can really appreciate the aerial antics of these starlings.
Monday, 26 December 2011
Heatwave continues
Boxing day continued the December heatwave with a high temperature of 14.2°C. There was no chance of a frost either with an overnight low of 9.8°C pretty remarkable for the end of December.
Along with feeding the birds we like to make sure that they have some water to drink and have a bath in. They are resourceful and will make use of any water they can find. Some sparrows are certainly enjoying the little water available in a plant pot saucer by the greenhouse whilst other sparrows make use of the official bird bath to take a lunchtime bath.
Tuesday, 27 December 2011
Not so mild
Not quite so mild as the last few days but Tuesday still managed to reach a very respectable high of 11.4°C. It was the first time for more than a week that a high wind speed of less than 15mph was recorded. The strong winds have been the main feature of the month’s weather.
Wednesday, 28 December 2011
Windy again
The strong blustery wind was back today. It came back bringing some heavy squally showers with it. Although it’s not as mild as over Christmas the temperature continues to be above normal for December.
Both the above average temperature and windy weather have produced substantial blips on their respective charts for 2011. The mild temperatures show from the middle of the month whilst the high wind speed chart shows the windy weather has now been around since the last weeks of November.
Thursday, 29 December 2011
At long last
Thursday was wet and windy making for a thoroughly miserable day. It did bring to an end our long spell of months with below average rainfall with the 7.8mm of rain today taking us just above December’s long term average of 73.4mm. This ends a spell of below average rainfall going back to last February.
I know that the second half of December has been mild but our crops certainly aren't showing any of the effects listed in this online newspaper article.
Harvesting our Christmas vegetables on the plot last week I didn’t notice any of our crops in a state of early production. All our over-wintering vegetables looked to be doing just that. Spring cabbage and cauliflowers looked okay but there weren’t any signs that they were ready to be picked.
Our leeks looked in good condition along with the sprouts we picked. Parsnips and carrots were in good condition although the slugs had nibbled some of our carrots but that’s to be expected when they’re left in the ground to over-winter.
We’ve had a few rose flowers lingering into December but I put that down to them hanging on in a late autumn rather than being early for next year.
Lets not forget that officially we are only a few days into winter proper so I’m sure that there’s still plenty of time for some cold and frosty weather. Meanwhile it’s best to make the most of the mild weather whilst it’s here.
Friday, 30 December 2011
It’s the New Year Awards
Friday was wet and windy. The day’s maximum temperature was 10.7°C which is a bit misleading as it was a cold day with the temperature hovering around the 5°C mark for much of the day. The temperature rose quickly in the late evening to reach its maximum value for the day at midnight.
It’s the time of year when the New Year’s Awards are handed out to lots of surprised recipients who aren’t expecting to receive one. Well not to be outdone I wasn’t expecting an award either but to my surprise I was awarded a Bloghood. Now I’m told this award is to try to get more followers to my blog. I know 25 is pretty poor but my blog is only about the weather and a few gardening related bits and pieces so I don’t expect the world to be riveted.
However at the time this Bloghood was awarded I had a couple of fruit pies cooking in the oven and with the waft of cooking pastry around I suspect this might be something to do with why I was included in this New Year’s Awards list.
Saturday, 31 December 2011
Happy New Year
Saturday brought the year to an end on a mild note with the temperature managing double figures one again. Over the last couple of years it’s been quite exceptional to manage a double figure temperature in December, indeed last December we didn’t even manage one solitary hour in double figures.
I’ve been doing lots of sums over Christmas and the New Year to compare the hourly temperatures for each month since I’ve had my weather station. Looking at this December it’s easy to see just how much milder it’s been than the previous two Decembers with far less blue in its column.