It has been an amazing spell of settled weather over the last 2 weeks of the month. Which has culminated in the highest February temperature ever recorded! These records are the longest in the world and go back to 1656. It is also significant that previously no winter month had ever gone over 20c before. This is equivalent to breaking 40c in the summer!
Records
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Highest February /winter / English temperature with 21.2c at Kew Gardens on 26th February
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Highest Welsh temperature with 20.8c on 26th at Porthmadog, Gwynedd.
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Highest Scottish temperature in February with 18.3c on 21st at Aboyne in Aberdeenshire.
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Warmest February night with a minimum of 13.9c at Achnagart in Scotland.
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The highest maximum daily average temperature was the warmest ever at 11.3c beating the previous record of 10.7c in 1998. These records go back since 1878.
- Winter CET ended at 5.87c, 17th warmest winter for 360 years.
UK Stats
It was a high pressure dominated month especially the last 3 weeks, southerly winds either pumping the heat up from the Carribean or at the end from North Africa. A complete contrast from last winter, where we had a similar setup but the high pressure sat in France and the low countries. In the beast from the east, the high pressure got stuck over Scandinavia. Because of the very cold start to the month, this stopped February being a record warm month overall.
This month the long range models weren’t very good at spotting this warm trend, for weeks in January it was saying February was going to be a cold month. Even mid-month it didn’t pick up this exceptional warm weather.
The highest temperature of the month as mentioned above was 21.2c at Kew Gardens on the 26th, the lowest temperature was at Braemar (Aberdeenshire) with -15.4c on the 1st. The highest rainfall total for a 24 hour period was at Capel Curig (Gwynedd) with 50.8mm on the 8th. The highest wind gust was 84mph at Capel Curig on the 8th. On the 2nd the highest snowfall total 33cm was recorded at Tomnavoulin (Morayshire).
Watford Stats
The highest temperature I recorded was 21.6c on the 26th, there 16 dry days compared to 12 wet. The rainfall was slightly below average for this time of the year with 43.8mm. The lowest temperature recorded was -4.9c in the cold spell at the beginning of the month.
Looking ahead to March
All change in March with the jet stream revving up making up for lost time, there is a possibility of unexpected snow falls as we will be on the cold side of the jet. This will be mainly in the north but don’t be surprised to see a covering in the south. Winter will be biting back during the middle of the month, with a warmer end.
Summary for February 2019 in Watford
Temperature (°C):
Mean (1 minute) 7.0
Mean (min+max) 7.7
Mean Minimum 2.6
Mean Maximum 12.8
Minimum -4.9 day 02
Maximum 21.6 day 26
Highest Minimum 7.1 day 28
Lowest Maximum 2.1 day 01
Air frosts 6
Rainfall (mm):
Total for month 43.8
Wettest day 10.5 day 28
High rain rate 18.0 day 28
Rain days 12
Dry days 16
Wind (mph):
Highest Gust 18.3 day 08
Average Speed 1.0
Wind Run 698.9 miles
Gale days 0
Pressure (mb):
Maximum 1030.8 day 25
Minimum 978.9 day 01
Days with snow falling 1
Days with snow lying at 0900 0
Links
Met Office – https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/cet_info_mean.html
Met Office Summary – https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries
Real-time Watford Weather – https://weather.andrewlalchan.co.uk/
Flickr – https://www.flickr.com/photos/alalchan/albums
Weather Outlook – https://www.theweatheroutlook.com/twocommunity/
January – https://blog.andrewlalchan.co.uk/watford-weather-january-2019-statistics/
