UK Weather Online

UK last month

December 2010

Temperature anomaly maps for December 2010:

It was exceptionally cold across the UK, with mean temperatures some 5 °C below the 1971-2000 average, and the coldest December in over 100 years. It was also one of the coldest calendar months in the last 100 years and the coldest since February 1986. Temperatures quite widely fell to very low values on several nights and remained below freezing during the day. The number of days with air frost was the highest for December for over 50 years.  It was briefly less cold around mid-month and temperatures rose to around normal in the last few days. Snowfalls occurred in almost all areas, especially in the first week and from mid-month until Christmas.

December was, however, generally drier and sunnier than normal. Less than a third of the average rainfall was recorded over most of Wales, western England and western Scotland. Provisionally, it was the driest December over the UK since 1963 and the third driest in the 100-year series.  It was a very sunny month in the west and north, with over twice the normal amount and, provisionally, Northern Ireland and western Scotland enjoyed their sunniest December on record. In contrast, it was a dull month in south-east England with around 60% of average sunshine.

A maximum temperature of 12.0 °C was recorded at Treknow (Cornwall) on 28th. A minimum temperature of –21.3 °C was recorded at Altnaharra (Highland) on 2nd. The significant precipitation fell as snow, with accumulations of over 40 cm in places; amongst the greatest depths were 54 cm at Nunraw Abbey (East Lothian) at 0900 on 7th, 55 cm at Westgate (County Durham) on 2nd and 58 cm at Balmoral (Aberdeenshire) on 1st.

Comments are closed.