January 2005 began wet and windy as active Atlantic depressions ploughed across the north of the UK. A particularly active storm was centred far to the west of Ireland on the 11th and began to deepen rapidly as it approached the northwest of Scotland during the day, bringing a spell of damaging winds, these following on from another storm that had affected northern areas on the 8th. Mean wind speeds approached sustained hurricane force and gusted to record breaking speeds in the far north and west for a time during the late evening and early morning period of the 11th/12th.

At midnight the low was centred close to North Rona (a remote island station located in the far west of the Western Isles) predicted to be close to 944mbars as seen on the 00Z synoptic chart: http://www.wetterzentrale.de/archive/2005/brack/bracka20050112.gif). It was during this hour that the station recorded

There was a wet and windy start to 2005 as one active Atlantic depression after another ploughed across the northern UK. On January 12th though there was a particularly notable spell of unsettled weather. The storm was centred far to the west of Ireland on the 11th and began to deepen rapidly as it approached the west of Scotland during the day and brought a spell of damaging winds, in fact mean wind speeds approached sustained hurricane force and gusted to record breaking speeds in the far north and west for a time during the late evening and early morning period of the 11th/12th.

At midnight the low was centred close to North Rona (a remote island station located in the far west of the Western Isles) predicted to be close to 944mbars as seen on the 00Z synoptic chart: http://www.wetterzentrale.de/archive/2005/brack/bracka20050112.gif). It was during this hour that the station

Although global warming is expected to give us increasingly warm months in the future we need to remember that not every month will be as warm as another. In particular if we start to expect hot summer months all the time we are likely to be either disappointed or pleased -depending on your viewpoint. This July doesn't look likely to be an especially hot month, certainly starting rather chilly for many and as such will be in complete contrast to last year.

July 2006 was the warmest such month since records begun in 1659 and the sunniest since records started in 1881. However, as well as being very warm and sunny it was also one of the twelve driest Julies in the past century.

The month started very warm indeed as southerly winds brought a continental flow up across the UK. Even on the 1st it reached 30.5C at Pershore (Worcs) and by the 2nd London's Heathrow Airport saw temperatures climb to 32.3C. The 3rd and 4th were again hot with 31.4C and 31.3C

The media has recently suggested that this August looked set for further high temperatures. Whether this occurs or not, August is synonymous in many people’s minds with seeing the best of the summer weather in the UK. In fact, although August often does see the hottest temperatures of the year this is not always the case. It contains the hottest day of the year only once in every four years, slightly less than June.

Balanced against the warmer sea temperatures during August we have to put its shorter days and correspondingly lower sunshine hours, with the strength of the sun less strong as each day passes. This usually means that overall August is slightly cooler normally than July, especially in the south east of England.

Nevertheless, nearly all the very hottest days recorded have been in August. In the last century the August days that stand out occurred in 1911, 1932 and 1990 as well 2003 of course,

The month of July 2006 started very warm indeed as southerly winds brought a continental flow up across the UK. Even on the 1st it reached 30.5C at Pershore (Worcs) and by the 2nd London's Heathrow airport saw temperatures climb to 32.3C. The 3rd and 4th were again hot with 31.4C and 31.3C reported respectively at Heathrow; even further north 30C was reached locally in Manchester on the 5th. By the 6th the heat had moved further north as Aboyne in Aberdeenshire saw 27.5C reached.

From the 2nd however it also became very unsettled as thundery weather developed in places in response to increasingly unstable air moving in from the south aloft. By 00Z on the 3rd a thundery trough lay over the SW, Wales and up into the NW of England, (see chart at http://www.wetterzentrale.de/archive/2006/brack/bracka20060703.gif ) and thunderstorms moved across Devon and other parts of the SW

The second half of December 2006 was dominated largely by a vast anticyclone which was anchored close to or over the British Isles for several days. This itself was noteworthy in that it caused widespread travel problems due to fog at London Airports. Christmas began to see the high presure move slowly east whilst at the same time the jet stream over the western Atlantic strengthened and began to drive fronts towards the UK to erode the block. The last few days of December saw the remnants of the dull grey anticylonic block swept out of the UK as a major change headed in from the west.

The diffluent omega blocking which had persisted for nearly two weeks collapsed SE into Europe, as cold advection weakened to its east and a strengthening Atlantic jet and trough literally 'shoved' it out of the way. Zonality was set to return to much of the North Atlantic and N Europe and  from the 29th to the 31st December a series of depressions swept across

August also saw a rather dull month for most parts though temperatures were at least close to average. The (Hadley) CET mean temperature was 16.2C, just slightly above the average as forecast (+0.4C).

August saw CET temperature anomalies range from just below average in northern parts and in the SW to very slightly above average in much of the rest of the south and SE. One of the warmest places was Coningsby (Lincs) with a mean temperature of 22.5C. The coldest was Lerwick (Shetland) with a mean of 14.8C. Most of the UK was very close to or just above average in fact. Pressure was about 2mb below average over most parts though western Ireland saw pressure nearer 5mb below.
Like July , August was a notably wet month in places.

The south coast counties were very wet but elsewhere it was generally near average or even rather dry. Central Scotland saw just 50% of its average rainfall. The Midlands too & parts of the east coastal counties

April is a month that we often regard as being relatively Spring like; with the days getting lighter, buds are usually well developed on trees and other foiliage by mid month. Although we think of it as a relatively benign month that produces April showers we also expect plenty of relatively warm sunshine in between and assume that prolonged rainfall events are rather rare.

Suffice to say then that there will always be April’s that go against such expectations and 1998 provided just such an example. April 1998 was a very wet month. In fact it was notable for being the wettest month since 1818 across England and Wales, with 138mm falling on average but it was also quite cold and sunless as well.

It will probably be best remembered for the severe flooding that developed over the Midlands and East Anglia just before Easter on April 9th however. Synoptic charts for the period show that a frontal zone lay across the area, with a relatively

April 2003 was one of the last warm April's we have seen in recent times. The CET was 9.6C and it was both sunny and dry. In particular the first three weeks were very settled and dry though with some chilly nights about too but it is for the notable early heatwave that this April is remembered by meteorologists. However whilst the first few weeks were reasonable the really warm weather didnt begin until the 14th.

The temperature then reached 27.4C (and so passing the magic 80F barrier with 81F) at Stratfield Mortimer (Beds) on the 16th. Remarkable for being the third highest April temperature ever recorded, and the highest since 1949. It stayed hot on the following days too as the warm weather moved further north. On the 17th 26.9C was reported at Lochcarron (Wester Ross) which was a new April record for Scotland, there was 27C at Prestatyn (the highest Welsh record since 1893), and most remarkably still 22.1C as far north as the Orkney Isles.

November 2005 was a month of two notably different halves. Whilst the first half continued with the near record-breaking autumn warmth of September and October, it was also very stormy. However, it was followed by a dramatic change to a much colder anticyclonic period, bringing the coldest second half of November since 1993 with temperatures up to 4C below average in some districts. The cold spell also brought some disruptive falls of snow to the southwest in late November. Despite the wet dull start, due to the exceptionally sunny, anticyclonic mid-month period, November 2005 was the sunniest on record for England and Wales, in a record that stretches back to 1881.

The upper air situation across northwestern Europe on the 13th, following on from the stormy period of the week previous, was that of a deep long wave trough 'digging in' south to the east of the UK, with a cut-off upper vortex forming over Spain. This allowed cooler air to flow south across the UK in a N'ly flow behind