Thought I would quickly take a look back at January and how it played out across Europe and the UK. As you can see from the below graphics 2016’s opening month was  ended up warmer as well as wetter than normal. Largely down to the strong El Nino, we’ve seen temps climb as high as 17C, just 1C off the all-time record and as for rainfall, parts of eastern Scotland and England saw 3 times the normal rainfall with Aberdeenshire experiencing it’s wettest January on record. Amazingly, Aboyne broke it’s January rainfall record just 8 days in.

The short cold spell wasn’t enough to make for an average month over either UK or Europe.

It’s been a north-south contrast in temperature over mainland Europe. While mild from UK south to Iberia into France and central parts, it was anything but mild over Scandinavia and Russia.

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January ended and February began on a storm note with Gertrude in late January producing gusts of 132 mph over Cairngorm, 105 mph at Lerwick (strongest for Shetland since 2000) then came Henry with gusts of 148 mph over Cairngorm.

Gertrude

The storms continue to run a powerhouse jet stream but the one notable difference will be the further south position of the jet and storms focusing more over the southern UK and Southwest Europe.

Severe gales and persistent rain will pile into southern England and Wales through today and so there’s a risk of battering waves, flooding and possible damage on the coast.

The bombardment of frequent spells of strong wind and persistent rain continues into next week but colder air begins to drop south towards mid next week as low pressure moves east and heights rise out over the Atlantic.

See the video for today’s discussion.
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