I finally tracked down on the internet what purport to be the 1991-2020 LTALTALong Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO. for the airport at Svalbard, and produced these charts of temperatures and anomalies for the period 27 October 2024 to the 15 February 2025. As you can see the results are quite startling, with mean maximum anomalies for the whole period a massive +7.8°C above average, with only four of the one hundred and twelve days with maximum temperatures below the LTA. It’s not until you examine station data such as this, that you realise just how rapidly the Arctic is warming at present.
Buchan spells are either cold or warm spells that the 19th century Scottish meteorologist Alexander Buchan claimed happened at roughly the same times each year. Through statistical analysis, Buchan claimed to have discerned patterns in the Scottish weather that repeated about the same time of the year. He theorized that these were predictable interruptions (either warmer or colder) in the smooth annual transition of temperatures between the seasons. They are now believed by meteorologists to be random events.
Buchan cold spells:
7-14 February
11-14 April
9-14 May
29 June – 4 July
6-11 August
6-13 November
Buchan warm spells:
12-15 July
12-15 August
3-14 December
Courtesy of Wikipedia
Although the CETCETCentral England Temperature series is for temperatures in central England and not Scotland, it’s the only daily temperature series that’s available back beyond the 19th century with which I could verify the accuracy of Buchans nine cold and warm spells, so it will have to do! As you can see from the results in the bar chart above of correct results from 1772, and if I’ve done my programming correctly, they show that meteorologists are correct in believing the cold spells are not true singularities, but rather the result of random events. Despite knowing this for many years, I still can’t resist seeing if a cold or warm spell is correct, certainly the 7th to 14th February 2025 look likely to be correct.
There’s no doubt that precipitation is increasing in the UKUKThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. over the last 30 years. These charts use gridded precipitation data from the UKMOUKMOThe Meteorological Office is the United Kingdom's national weather service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy since 1836 and show a 30 year leading moving average of totals, and a couple of linear trends, one for the period 1865 to 1993, and another for the period 1994-2024. The annual chart, shows that there’s been an increase of almost 25 mm per decade in precipitation since 1994. Seasonally the changes have been less straightforward.
Winters [DJFDJFMeteorological Winter comprising the months of December, January & February] have become wetter by over 31 mm in the last 30 years.
Whilst spring [MAMMAMMeteorological Spring comprising the months of March, April & May] has got marginally drier since 1994.
Although summers [JJAJJAMeteorological Summer comprising the months June, July & August] were getting very slowly drier since 1836, from around 2003 this halted, and since summers have been getting progressively wetter, at the rate of 11.6 mm per decade much like winters.
Autumn [SONSONMeteorological Autumn - September, October and November] on the other hand have been slowly getting wetter by 3.2 mm per decade since 1994 at a similar rate since 1865.
A very anticyclonic start to February 2025 across NW Europe, with an anticyclone extending NENENorth East’ward from the Azores from the 4th, and then drifting onto into southern Norway by the 7th, producing anomalies for the first week of +19 hPahPaA Hectopascal is the SI unit of pressure and identical to the Millibar across Oslo.
At a glance the NAONAOThe North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is a weather phenomenon over the North Atlantic Ocean of fluctuations in the difference of atmospheric pressure at sea level (SLP) between the Icelandic Low and the Azores High. Through fluctuations in the strength of the Icelandic Low and the Azores High, it controls the strength and direction of westerly winds and location of storm tracks across the North Atlantic. over the last six months correlates well with daily mean CETCETCentral England Temperature values, but UKPUKPUKP is a gridded datasets of UK regional precipitation. daily rainfall seems to have been higher when the NAO was negative. I Had to find another source to access the data, the file had disappeared from the UCAR site for some reason.
This graph above is a series of temperatures and anomaly charts for the period between the 1 December 2017, and 31st of March 2018. This is the winter in which the ‘Beast from the east’ (22nd of February to the 5th of March) cold wave occurred. The bar charts display daily ‘composite’ temperatures and anomalies for each of the four nations, England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. What I mean here by ‘composite’, is the aggregated daily maximum and minimum temperatures for all SYNOPSYNOPSYNOP (surface synoptic observations) is a numerical code (called FM-12 by WMO) used for reporting weather observations made by manned and automated weather stations. SYNOP reports are typically mad hourly and consist of groups of numbers (and slashes where data is not available) describing general weather information, such as the temperature, barometric pressure and visibility at a weather station. stations, below 250 M amslAMSLThe height Above Mean Sea Level., for each of the four nations. The gantt chart along the bottom shows cold and warm spells, when maximum, minimum or mean anomalies were 3°C above, or 3°C below the LTALTALong Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO. for three days or longer. The line chart below shows a seven day centred average of daily mean anomalies for each of the four nations. As you can see the lowest anomalies during the cold wave at the end of February occurred in England and Wales, and around 1.6°C lower than those in Scotland, and 1.2°C lower than those in Ireland. The effects of the ‘Mini beast from the East’ which occurred later in March can also be seen. One similarity I did notice, was the pre-Christmas cold snap that occurred in the third week of December, which rapidly turned into a short Christmas mild spell. This is not too dissimilar to the rapid warming during the cold-warm spell seen we saw this winter [2024/2025] in Scotland.
I make the anomaly for January +1.75°C above the pre-industrial LTALTALong Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO., which makes it the warmest January in the series, which started in 1940. It surprised some people, but if you watch the daily values, it was always on the cards. 😉 Of course with a La NinaLa NiñaLa Niña is an oceanic and atmospheric phenomenon that is the colder counterpart of El Niño, as part of the broader El Niño–Southern Oscillation climate pattern. The name La Niña originates from Spanish for "the girl", by analogy to El Niño, meaning "the boy". In the past, it was also called an anti-El Niño[1] and El Viejo, meaning "the old man." just starting in the Pacific, most people thought that 2025 would end up being cooler than 2024, obviously the warmer than average oceans away from the central Pacific, and which drive global temperatures, have other ideas. 😮
Courtesy of BBCBBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the national broadcaster of the United Kingdom, based at Broadcasting House in London. It is the world's oldest national broadcaster, and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees, employing over 22,000 staff in total, of whom approximately 19,000 are in public-sector broadcasting. Weather Watchers
There was some spectacular wave clouds around the Moray Firth this afternoon. A very mild 11°C in the strath.
An exceptionally mild January across northern Quebec (+13°C), much colder further south across the southern United States (-4°C). Europe, particularly further east, was very mild with a large area of warm anomalies (+6°C) centred across eastern Russia. Anomalies across the Atlantic were generally closer to average, but it was slightly warmer than average to the east of Iberia, and slightly colder to the north of Iceland.
Another month in which the monthly MSLPMSLPMean sea level pressure is the pressure at sea level, or, when measured at a given elevation on land, the station pressure reduced to sea level assuming an isothermal layer at the station temperature. anomaly chart hides what really happened. The first twelve days of the month were dominated by cold north or northwesterly wind . A spell of anticyclonic weather occurred mid-month across the south, before things got more cyclonic in the last week, with some very intense extratropical lows, one of them being storm Eowyn on the 24th. That’s why I thought it might be interesting to add pentad MSLP charts for January, to show just how anomalies can often times cancel each other out as if nothing had happened.🤔
The mean temperature in the UKUKThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. in January was 3.0°C, which was 0.9°C below the 1991-2020 LTALTALong Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO.. Temperatures in thirteen of the twenty five Januaries this century have been below average. Gridded mean temperature, like those in the central England series, show that Januaries in the last thirty years have more or less flatlined, cooling by 0.03°C per decade. It was drier than average across Scotland, Northern Ireland and in NW England, but wetter elsewhere, particularly across the far south. Sunshine was above average in most places apart from central southern England and the southeast.
The most easterly February in the objective LWTLWTLamb Weather Types are often used in UK-based analyses, with individual weather patterns based on the eight primary cardinal directions (N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW) plus cyclonic (C), anticyclonic (A) and unclassified (U) types. series, which started in 1871, occurred in 1986, when 64% of weather types were classified either NENENorth East, E or SE, with 32% identified as being Anticyclonic. This resulted in a very cold, but very dry (18% of the LTALTALong Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO.) and rather sunny month across the UKUKThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland., with mean temperatures of -1.1°C, and anomalies -5.2°C below the 1991-2020 LTA.
February Objective LWT Daily 850 hPahPaA Hectopascal is the SI unit of pressure and identical to the Millibar Temperature Colour analysis
The gridded mean temperature of -1.1°C made 1986 the third joint coldest February since 1884.
In central England the mean temperature for the month was -1.0°C which was -6.0° below the 1991-2020 LTA, making it the joint fifth coldest February since 1659.
The mean temperature in January 2025 in central England was 3.4°C, which made the anomaly -1.3°C lower than the 1991-2020 LTALTALong Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO.. Nothing too remarkable, but the lowest monthly anomaly in three years. What is remarkable, is that mean temperatures in January, have flatlined in the last 30 years. A linear trend since 1878 through to 2025 shows that Januaries have been slowly warming at the rate of 0.09°C per decade over that time.
Monthly Mean Anomalies 1980-2025Daily Temperatures and Anomalies 31 October 2024 – 31 January 2025
January was a cold month in StrathpefferStrathpefferStrathpeffer (Scottish Gaelic: Srath Pheofhair) is a village and spa town in Easter Ross, Highland, Scotland, with a population of 1,469., especially the first 12 days, then sharply milder. The snow, of which there was as much as 15 cm by the 10th, was not picked up well by the AWSAWSAutomatic Weather Station because of the sub-zero temperatures, so take the hyetograph results with a huge pinch of salt!
January 2025 was a rather cold month, with an estimated UKUKThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. mean temperature for the month of -1.1°C. It would have been much colder if hadn’t been for a very mild spell in mid -month across Scotland, which negated the very cold start to the month across the north. The odd thing is, some of the highest anomalies occurred on top of the highest mountains in Scotland!
There had been a slow decline in 30 year mean maximum and minimum temperature in February between 1940 and 1990, but over the last 30 years maximum temperatures have rocketed up at the rate of 0.5°C per decade, although the rise in 3o year average mean minimum temperatures has been a little slower.
Remarkably, the rise in mean temperature seems to have coincided with a corresponding rise in precipitation in February as well. The linear trend from 1865 to 1993 was showing a very slight fall in 30 year average precipitation in February, but since 1994, average precipitation totals have increased by 5.8 mm each decade.
Sunshine in February has seen a rise of 3.1 hours per decade in the last 30 years. Totals have been rather static for the UKUKThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. for a period that began in 1960 and which ended in 2000. So, the short answer to the question ‘what’s happening to the climate in February’ is, are they getting progressively warmer, wetter and sunnier.
Here are anomaly charts for the UKUKThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. for extreme rainfall, sunshine and mean temperatures during the month of February, courtesy of the UKMOUKMOThe Meteorological Office is the United Kingdom's national weather service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Temperature and rainfall anomaly charts are available from 1910, but sunshine charts have only been produced since 2001. Why this is when the Met OfficeUKMOThe Meteorological Office is the United Kingdom's national weather service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy have all the gridded data to generate them with, is a question only they can answer. Surely it wouldn’t take that much effort to extend the series back to at least 1884 for temperature, 1836 for rainfall and 1910 for sunshine. Perhaps they’re looking for a group of volunteers to do it for them? In a similar way to how a similar group of volunteers digitised the data for them in the first place.😂 Wouldn’t it also be an excellent idea in the spirit of inter Metservice co-operation, to ask Met EireannMet ÉireannMet Éireann, the Irish National Meteorological Service, is the leading provider of weather information and related services for Ireland., if they could have their permission to use their climate data to fill in the missing data for the rest of Ireland?
Unusually, Januaries in central England have been bucking the trend of accelerated warming in recent years. Fifteen of the last twenty-six have been colder than average. Even a thirty year linear trend (1996-2025) is showing a cooling of -0.04°C over that period.
After the surge in warming over the last 18 months, global temps are now taking a bit of a breather. Linear trend over 30 years still show warming of 0.25°C per decade, which is quite astonishing.🥵
Courtesy of the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere
Storm Éowyn turned out to be the most powerful named storm by far in the UKUKThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. and Ireland using my Gale Index method. It finished top in both the gale hours and the maximum gust hours category, but finished third behind Isha and Ciara on peak hourly GIGIGale Index. There were a number of missing observations from key stations such as Belmullet, Mace Head and Glasgow, who knows the GI could have been even higher if these observations hadn’t gone missing, possibly as a result of power cuts brought about by the storm itself.
09 UTCUTCCoordinated Universal Time or UTC is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is within about 1 second of mean solar time (such as UT1) at 0° longitude (at the IERS Reference Meridian as the currently used prime meridian) and is not adjusted for daylight saving time. It is effectively a successor to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). 24 Jan 2025Gale Index – 24 January 2025Maximum gusts 240000-250600 UTCHours of storm force gusts or higherHours of gale force 8 or higher
December 2024 was a very wet and a rather mild month in StrathpefferStrathpefferStrathpeffer (Scottish Gaelic: Srath Pheofhair) is a village and spa town in Easter Ross, Highland, Scotland, with a population of 1,469. with almost 9 inches of rain.
5th – 11th January 2025 Altnaharra 3 hour forecast temperature verification Data from the UKMOUKMOThe Meteorological Office is the United Kingdom's national weather service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Weather App
I doubt if you’ll ever see a temperature forecast as way out as this one got. It was issued by the Met OfficeUKMOThe Meteorological Office is the United Kingdom's national weather service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in their weather app on the 5th of January for Altnaharra in Sutherland. The blue line in the top chart shows three hourly forecast temperatures for the next seven days. The red filled area shows air temperatures taken from AWSAWSAutomatic Weather Station observations for Altnaharra. The lower bar chart, shows the difference between the forecast and the observed. Although the forecast for the 7th to the 9th was reasonably accurate, the 10th and 11th got progressively worse, with forecast temperatures being as much as 20°C too high at one point. I’m not sure what NWPNWPNumerical weather prediction uses mathematical models of the atmosphere and oceans to predict the weather based on current weather conditions. model the Met Office use for these site specific forecasts, but it has got some severe problems, and not just with record cold temperatures I might add.
The latest estimated Arctic sea ice extent is the third lowest for the 10th of January at 13.103 million square kilometres, thats 91.7% of the LTALTALong Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO. and ~880,000 lower than it was this time last year. Someone has definitely left the fridge door open here.🥵
