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.
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.
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.
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?
Here are charts I generate from a program I have that calculates gridded temperature extremes for any region based on their WMOWMOThe World Meteorological Organisation is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for promoting international cooperation on atmospheric science, climatology, hydrology and geophysics. location. At the moment that’s just Wales, Ireland, Scotland, England and 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.. It’s pretty crude, because it depends on a mix of available stations be it coastal or inland, but if they don’t change, and they don’t, and I ignore mountain stations, and there are no more than four of those, the results look pretty good, at least for comparison purposes. Here are the results for the three months up to the 6th of January 2025. As you can see, there have already been at least two significant cold spells this Autumn and Winter, both were colder and longer in Scotland than they were in England, and that’s usually how things are, in a northerly. But despite the ‘floodgates to an Arctic blarst’ being opened in the far north, it maybe a day, sometime even longer before the cold weather reaches the south, and 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 and 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 finally take notice. This has happened multiple times each winter since we’ve returned to Scotland, and bugs me every single time. There, I’ve got it off my chest now, my therapist will be delighted 😉
The climate 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. during 2024 was :-
Rather warm everywhere, but very warm across much of England.
Wet across central southern England, parts of the Midlands and northwest England, but less wet further north, particularly Northern Ireland, where totals were below average.
Rather dull, with below average sunshine in much of the west, but brighter further east, with above average sunshine totals across East Anglia and the far east.
December was a very mild 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., the fifth warmest in the UK to be exact since 1884, with a mean temperature of 6.2°C, that was +2.0°C above the 1991-2020 LTALTALong Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO.. Rainfall totals were closer to average though, at 110% of the POAPOAPercentage Of Average, the wetter weather in the north balancing out the drier weather across the south. It was a very dull month across the board, sunshine totals were the fourth lowest since 1910, at just 57% of the POA.
Rather than look at climate data for a single station for month, season or year, I thought it might be useful if you could look at climate data for all available stations for a specific region. It’s easy enough to filter stations for a particular region using their WMOWMOThe World Meteorological Organisation is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for promoting international cooperation on atmospheric science, climatology, hydrology and geophysics. number, that’s supposing there are enough stations in that region to calculate a meaningful value for. So 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., I can now look at temperatures and anomalies for England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, or for the whole of them combined, for any given period. It’s crude, but more effective that you might think. The above charts are for the three months prior to Christmas Day 2024 for the whole of the UK and Ireland, in this case that’s data from an average 136 stations each day, which excludes all stations of 300M amslAMSLThe height Above Mean Sea Level. and above. I’ll get back to you on accuracy of this simple method, when I’ve run some verification tests against regional 1.5 km gridded 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.
Surprisingly, October ended up a rather average kind of month as far as sunshine, precipitation and temperature were concerned 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. as whole. Regionally, the northwest was drier than average, and the northeast sunnier than average. Mean temperature anomalies across the nation, which were slightly above the LTALTALong Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO., were within 0.3°C of each other. As Greavies would remark, it’s a funny old game Saint😜
Christmas Day 12 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). 1979-2023
This post is more of a reminder to myself about an application I wrote to display a grid of charts it downloads from Wetterzentrale. You can choose to display CFSCFSThe Climate Forecast System or coupled forecast system (CFS) is a medium to long range numerical weather prediction and a climate model run by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) to bridge weather and climate timescales. Version 2 became operational as CFSv2 in 2011., ERAERAERA stands for 'ECMWF Re-Analysis' and refers to a series of research projects at ECMWF which produced various datasets (ERA-Interim, ERA-40, etcetera). or NOAANOAANOAA is an agency in the Department of Commerce that maps the oceans and conserves their living resources; predicts changes to the earth's environment; provides weather reports and forecasts floods and hurricanes and other natural disasters related to weather. reanalysis charts either as charts of isobars overlaid over colour filled contours of 500 hPahPaA Hectopascal is the SI unit of pressure and identical to the Millibar heights, or as charts of isolines of 850 hPa geopotential heights, overlaid on colour filled contours of 850 hPa temperature. I think it produces a pretty useful grid of charts to view a month, or a season, but in truth I haven’t used it that much in the last 12 years. The example above displays surface pressure charts for Christmas day.
Winter [DJFDJFMeteorological Winter comprising the months of December, January & February] 1962-63
The grid of images above, is for daily 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. and daily 500 hPa geopotential heights for each day of the infamous winter of 1962-63.
The other innovative thing that I added to the application, was a colour analyser (above image). This does a lookup on the colour of each pixel across the map of the British Isles in the downloaded image, and calculates an overall average which it uses to plot a graph and fill a table with the daily 850 hPa temperature or the 500 hPa geopotential height. A crude but quite effect way of gauging just how warm or cold it is on any given day. There are problems with the app, but out of my control, in that Wetterzentrale for some years, use a slightly different resolution and size for their images. I could fix it but it’s fiddly. They also seem now not to load the ERA reanalysis images on their server. Who knows for how much longer they’ll maintain the CFS and NOAA images, it would be a real loss if this went.
A month at first glance dominated by colder than average temperatures. Yet another cold month across Iceland, with what’s fast becoming the normal NW-SE temperature gradient across the British Isles.
Mean temperatures across the British Isles were close to the LTALTALong Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO.. Much of the North Atlantic was warm (+3C) south of 55N, but a band of colder temperatures extended from Baffin Island (-5C) in the west to southern Scandinavia (-1C) in the east. Meanwhile the north of Scandinavia was warm (+3C), likewise SE Europe around Bulgaria was also very warm (+4C).
I’ve redesigned how I visualise moving averages in my Daily CETCETCentral England Temperature program to generate a user definable moving average graph of daily CET values since 1772, this ended up being something of a job because now I dynamically plot over 250 annual ‘silver’ coloured line series, one for each year, as a backdrop. Over this backdrop I plot a 30 day moving mean for the year (dashed black), along with its corresponding +1/-1 standard deviations (dashed red and blue lines). On top of that I plot the coldest (bold blue) and the warmest (bold red) 30 day period ending 13th of April. Finally, I plot the 30 day moving average for the last 365 days (bold black with yellow outline), and at the same time I list the latest values in a ranked table on the left. With it, I make the latest 30 day mean temperature 10.57°C for the 13th of April, that’s the warmest 30 day period for that date in the series since 1772, and 3.53°C above the LTALTALong Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO. for 1772-2023. As you can see n the graph and the table this is significantly higher that the previous warmest of 9.79°C in 2017. Hopefully all this new code is producing accurate results 😉
The exceptional heatwave across Belarus, Ukraine & E Russia continued this lunchtime, with anomalies as high as +19°C, the highest I’ve seen. Juxtaposed with the very cold air across Finland, Sweden and northern Norway.
The curious thing in March was that although Atlantic SSTSSTSea Surface Temperatures were at record high levels, the air above it (in the central Atlantic at least) was 2 degrees colder than average.
For people who can’t get their heads around anomalies I’ve made a slight variation on just a simple bar chart of anomalies. The twist is that it now displays both daily temperatures and anomalies, temperatures on the left Y axis and anomalies on the right Y axis. My 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.NWPNWPNumerical weather prediction uses mathematical models of the atmosphere and oceans to predict the weather based on current weather conditions. application downloads forecast data the BBC use in their own weather app, and parses the HTML and extracts hourly and daily forecast values for each site. I’ve kept the same scale for the extremes in each charts Y axis for each site I display in the grid to aid comparison. So you can now quickly see at a glance the forecast temperature and how it compares with the LTALTALong Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO..
2024 saw an exceptionally mild February across much of Europe, the warmth centred across the eastern Alps (+7°C). It was a little colder than average across to the northwest of Iceland (-2°C), which help produce a tight SE-NW temperature gradient across the IONAIONAIslands Of North Atlantic.
Yes I know there's an island called Iona, but this is so I don't have to use the term 'British Isles' when referring to the whole of Ireland and the UK. which and was evident for much of the month. It wasn’t just Europe that was very mild, much of North America, away from the extreme west, was also anomalously warm (+6°C) during February.
Basically a wet and very mild February across the south and southeast of England, but colder and drier further north and west. Dull across England and Wales but brighter further north and east further north and west particularly the northeast of Scotland.
Using gridded monthly climate 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 and a simple linear trend for over the last thirty year, it’s easy to see that annually 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. as a whole has become warmer by 0.29°C per decade, wetter by 26 mm per decade and sunnier by 30 hours per decade. These three charts are twelve month moving averages from 1970, with a thirty year linear trend from 1995 to gauge the change overlaid.
