January Climate

January always has a slow start. Those who did get a holiday from work now just returning, as the schools go back too. Allegedly the nights are now getting shorter, but with the darkness this morning I’m not noticing anything just yet. So a new year, the same winter and a long month. You may remember last year’s January being so wet with the flooding in southern Britain. Provisional figures from the UK Met Office show that 2014 was the warmest year on record (since 1910) and the fourth wettest. Central England’s records go back further to 1659 and 2014 was still the warmest year in this area.

Typically in the UK, January will be colder, with frosts, stormy spells, and there could be a blocked pattern with a high pressure bringing settled and very cold weather. This set up is when temperatures records get broken. Or if the setup is more mobile, we can see low pressure after low pressure whizzing in from the Atlantic, milder air and then flooding like last year.  Some of the minimum temperatures records were in January. 1982 was particularly cold with the tied lowest ever of -27.2C at Braemar Aberdeenshire on the 10^th. England’s lowest ever on the same night at -26.1C at Newport (Shropshire) and the following day was England’s coldest day ever peaking at a miserable -11.3C. Imagine/remember that! Wales’s coldest night ever was also in January back in 1940, -23.3C in Rhayader (Powys) on the night of the 21^st. Currently, the UK is wavering between mild air coming up from the south and colder air nudging down from the NW, often changing on a daily basis. So there isn’t the opportunity for the earth to cool down significantly and those kinds of low air temperatures need lying snow for weeks.

Winter storms often smash in from the Atlantic. Northern Ireland had its strongest ever recorded gust in January 1974 at Kilkeel, Co. Down. 124mph recorded on the 12^th. By the end of this week we could see another storm bashing the far NW of the UK. However, we still have most of January and February to see some proper winter weather and March sometimes gives late snow. Don’t give up yet if you are looking to see some of the white stuff, we’re not in mid winter yet.

"Before the stars have left the skies, At morning in the dark I rise" R.L. Stevenson