Monthly summary December 2010

December 2010 was the coldest December that I have recorded and broke many other records. The mean temperature was 5.2°C below the long-term average. There was a record of 25 days with air frost in the month totaling a substantial 424 hours of sub-zero temperatures. There were ten days when the thermometer did not struggle into a positive figure. The extreme low of -11.7°C in the early hours of the 24th was the coldest December night since 1999 and the second coldest on record. It was the driest December since 2001 giving a total of 29.3mm, which was only 32% of the long-term average. Snow fell on a total of eight days and we endured ten days of fog.

The year 2010 was the coldest year since 1987 being 1.1°C below the long-term average and produced a record 32 days of snowfall. The total rainfall of 672mm was just 79% (175mm below) of the long-term average. It was the third driest year after 1997 (671mm) and 1996 (594mm).

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