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