Tag Archives: Winter 2018/19

London weather, UK climatology, UK rainfall, Weather

Winter 2018/19: average with extremes

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The winter of 2018/19 will probably be remembered most for the remarkable warmth in the last week of February. And for its lack of snowfall.
Overall statistics for the season look fairly unremarkable.

The mean temperature finished 6.1C, that’s 0.7C above average, the mildest for 3 years.

Rainfall was below average: 127mm fell, that’s 87 per cent of average and the driest for two years.

Sunshine was well above average: 211.6 hrs is 126 per cent over average, the sunniest for seven years.

The warmest day of the winter occurred on December 30th with 14.2C recorded. The warmest night was on January 28th when the temperature fell to just 10.8C.
The wettest day of the winter occurred on January 2nd when 15.3mm was recorded.

Snow first fell on 5 days between January 22 and February 1st: five days of snow falling and two days of snow lying over the three months is below average.

There were 29 air frosts during the three months, seven above the 1981-2010 average.

A full weather diary is available for the months of December, January and February. To view full stats for each month follow this link:http://1drv.ms/1kiTuzv

TMax winter

Summary for period 01/12/2018 to 28/02/2019

Temperature (°C):
Mean (min+max)   6.1
Mean Minimum     2.6
Mean Maximum     9.7
Minimum          -6.5 on 30/01/2019
Maximum          18.7 on 26/02/2019
Highest Minimum  11.5 on 06/12/2018
Lowest Maximum   1.3 on 23/01/2019
Air frosts       29
Rainfall (mm):
Total for period 127.0
Wettest day      11.4 on 20/12/2018
High rain rate   28.1 day 26/01/2019
Rain days        31
Dry days         59
Wind (mph):
Highest Gust     31.1 on 09/02/2019
Average Speed    2.8
Wind Run         6152.3 miles
Gale days        0
Pressure (mb):
Maximum          1043.8 on 02/01/2019
Minimum          980.4 on 01/12/2018
Days with snow falling         5
Days with snow lying at 0900   2
Total hours of sunshine        0.0
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London weather, Weather, weather pattern

A third of winter gone…

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…And not a flake of snow. There’s been lots of talk about how an SSW will eventually usher in a cold January and February but it is by no means guaranteed.

The average maxima for this December will finish 10.2C, precisely the same as December 1985. Other Decembers that finished close to this average maximum are shown below.
As you can see apart from the middle of the month the temperatures are all over the place. And so are the conditions that followed in January and February.

december all.PNG

A closer inspection of every year reveals that just three were very similar to 2018: 1974, 1986 and 1988.

748688.PNG

Again, there’s plenty of spread. The 500mb reanalysis charts below show the situation of the northern hemisphere on December 31st of each year, including this year.

December 31st 1974
December 31st 1986
December 31st 1988
December 31st 2018

What followed in January 1975, 1987 and 1989?
January 1975 in this area was the warmest on record, back to 1797, while January 1989 was the 12th warmest. Conversely, January 1987 saw one of the coldest spells on record.

Perhaps it is fair to say that there is a 66 per cent chance of a very mild January, though you cannot discount the 34 per chance of another January 1987…