Mild wet winter continues in early January figures

Provisional half-month statistics up to the 15^th of January show a continuation of the generally mild and wet theme of the UK’s winter thus far.

The mean UK temperature up to the 15^th of January is 5.1 °C, which is 1.5 °C above the long-term (1981-2010) average.

The mild January so far follows on from a mild UK December, which had a mean temperature of 5.7 °C, which is 1.8 °C above the long-term average – making it the eighth mildest December in records dating back to 1910, and the mildest since 1988.

It’s a similar story with UK rainfall. We’d normally expect about 48% of the January average rainfall by the 15^th of the month, but the UK has seen 87.9mm so far – which equates to 72% of the January average.

As usual, there are regional varations. England has been particularly wet so far this month, having already seen close to its full-month average, and Wales is not too far behind. Scotland and Northern Ireland, however, are closer to the ‘normal’ amount of rain we’d expect at this stage.

The wet January so far once again follows the theme set in December, which saw 184.7mm of rain – which is 154% of the average for the month.

While this means January, and winter, so far have been mild and wet, it doesn’t mean they will finish that way. We often see half-month or half-season figures which then change dramatically by the end of the period. So the message is, it’s too early to judge how January 2014 or winter 2013/4 will finish up.

The main reason for the mild and wet weather so far is that we have seen a predominance of west and south-west winds, bringing in mild air from the Atlantic – as well as generally unsettled conditions.

The table below shows provisional figures from 1-15 of January, with actual figures so far compared to full-month averages. We would normally expect rainfall and sunshine to be about 48% of the full-month average at this stage.

	Mean Temperature		Sunshine hours		Rainfall
January 1-15	Actual	Diff from Avg	Actual	% of Avg	Actual	% of Avg
	degC	degC	hours	%	mm	%
UK	5.1	1.5	26.1	55	87.9	72
England	6.0	1.9	34.7	64	80.4	97
Wales	5.8	1.7	20.6	42	137.7	88
Scotland	3.6	1.0	15.4	43	91.2	51
N Ireland	4.4	0.2	14.6	33	62.8	54