The UK in February
Mike Hulme on last month’s weather
DAYTIME TEMPERATURES
Another mild February in the
UK - 10 out of the last 13 February's have been above the average. Although the whole country was mild, the
southern and eastern regions were particularly so, reaching nearly 3°C above the seasonal norm. For places like Bournemouth and Ross-on-Wye
daytime temperatures were more typical of March than of February. Only one day - the 16th - had a
nationwide average temperature colder than the February average, while on the 4th
and 23rd the country reached 4°C above the long-term average. The winter as a whole - December, January,
February - was mild, but did not break any temperature records.
RAINFALL
Rainfall was close to
average over England and Wales, but well above average in Scotland (except for
the east coast). The UK as a whole was about
32 per cent wetter than usual (see Graph).
As with temperature, 10 out of the last 13 February's have been wetter
than average. The west of Scotland
recorded over 200mm in the month - two to three times the monthly average - but
even this was nothing compared to the several 100mm of rain that has fallen over
the countries of southeast Africa over the last two weeks.
SUNSHINE
After a dull first week,
February turned into a very sunny month, especially over England and
Wales. Lowestoft was the sunniest location
with nearly four hours of sunshine per day, 63 per cent more than usual. The seven hours of sunshine the country
enjoyed on Valentine's Day was an exceptionally high total for mid-February. This was the eighth successive month in the
UK with excess sunshine and the winter of 1999/2000 will go down as one of the
sunniest on record.
Dr Mike Hulme is a Research
Climatologist at the University of East Anglia
(more details at web
site: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~mikeh/)
February 2000: Mild, sunny and wet
Daytime Temperature:
1.9°C above average; Rainfall:
32% above average; Sunshine: 24%
above average.
[all average figures are
based on the 1951-80 average]
Mean monthly extremes:
Warmest Guernsey 11.3°C
Sunniest Lowestoft 108
hours sun
Wettest Eskdalemuir 232mm
Coldest Eskdalemuir 5.8°C
Cloudiest Eskdalemuir 48 hours
sun
Driest Aberdeen 20mm