UK Weather - Winter 2024/25

[Simon Culling]

As we moved into the Northern Hemisphere winter, it turned briefy very mild here in the UK. Yesterday (Sunday 1st Decemeber) was very mild here in Tiverton with a high of 15°C despite it being mostly cloudy with periods of showery rain. Today the showery theme has continued, but with more sunshine in-between the showers and it is quite a bit cooler - only 9°C at midday. But this is still above average for the time of the year.

I have not seen many winter forecasts so far this year, but those that I have seen are suggesting another mild and wet winter with only a few brief colder spells. I cannot make up my mind, but gut feeling is for a continuation of the mild (and probably wet) theme.

The flooding from the recent heavy rain in both England + Wales has now subsided, but I wonder if it had anything to do with this sinkhole that appeared in Wales over the weekend? This area of Wales has been heavily mined for coal (and other minerals) over recent centuries, although most of this industry has now ceased. Perhaps a combinaton of the old mineworks and the recent heavy rain?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj90ll47g4yo

[Simon Culling]

The weather is ramping up again here in the UK after a few quieter and pleasant days this week where we have seen some sunshine and a nip of frost overnight. Storm Darragh has been named by the Met Office for the weekend, but we also have another low for tonight + tomorrow to give us a wet and windy spell. Storm Darragh looks to be quite a strong affair and it will still be deepening as it crosses the UK and this will give very strong winds (from a NW direction) on its western flank with widespread gusts of 70-80mph, even inland in NW England. Could be some damage from this storm. As this storm then moves SE into Europe on Sunday we get a strong high pressure building to our west which will intoduce more of a NE flow into next week which will be rather cloudy and chilly. Hopefully we will be able to dry out then!

The Met Office have now issued an Amber weather warning for Saturday for much of western UK.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/articles/cd60v5d744lo

[Simon Culling]

The Met Office have issued a rare red warning for strong winds for tomorrow - Saturday 7th December - affecting western Wales and parts of SW England. Wind gusts to 80-90mph are anticipated in the warning area and unusually, the strogest winds will be from the W/NW and look to last 6-9 hours at maximum force. This is an unusual direction and timespan for very strong winds in the UK. Here in Tiverton the wind is expected to gust to over 70mph from 06hrs to 15hrs local time, so I have been outside today with a view to staying indoors tomorrow - don't want to be hit by flying debris!!

The low responsible, Storm Darragh, at 12Z today was out in the Atlantic (at 985mb and still deepening) and about 3-400nm to the west of Eire. Whilst it is not expected to deepen to lower than about 975mb tomorrow morning as it crosses the UK, there is a strong high pressure (about 1045mb) following the storm and this will give a very tight pressure gradient on its western flank as it moves over and to the east of the UK during Saturday. This is why the winds are expected to be so strong.

Maps of the red and amber wind warnings are in this BBC piece:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2dxlwz219ko

[Simon Culling]

Storm Darragh has now moved off east through the southern North Sea and into Europe, but it gave a very windy Saturday for most of England and Wales and particularly more western parts. Quite a few trees were felled and there was some structural damage - and sadly along with a couple of deaths directly attributed to this storm. See BBC article for futher details. Strongest wind gusts from official sites were:

96mph at Berry Head (an exposed site in Devon)
93mph at Capel Curig (NW Wales)
92mph at Aberdaron (NW Wales)
86mph at Pembrey Sands (S Wales)
85mph at Aberporth (W Wales coast)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1j00p3j2dpo

Here in Tiverton it was a very windy day with the mean speed at or over 30mph all day and with a top gust of 65mph (at a local site in the middle of the town which is usually very representative) around 3:30pm. The wind was gusting to 50mph or over all day and the noise of the wind became annoying after a while! One thing that was notable was the duration of the strong winds which was all day for the whole of the affected area which is unusual. This combined with an uncommon direction of W then NW probably contributed for the level of damage caused.

[Simon Culling]

High pressure has dominated the weather since the departure of Storm Darragh and England + Wales have been dull and cloudy for the last few days. Here in Tiverton we have had leaden skies since Monday and the temperature has only varied between 5°C and 7°C for the last five days. Hopeful of a little sunshine this weekend!

In contrast, much of Scotland, which has been located under the centre of the high, has seen sunny days and frosty nights - the temperature fell to around -10°C on both Tuesday and Wednesday morning and the usual sites in the Glens had a couple of ice days.

Storm Darragh appears to have claimed a third victim and someone well known in International Rugby Union circles. It appears Tom Voyce was attempting to cross a ford in the road and his car was swept away by floodwater. He represented England 9 times in the early 2000's at wing/fullback. A sad loss to rugby.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1kej2m3dvvo

[Simon Culling]

We have had typical winter weather for the last week with alternating SW and then NW airflows, with the temperature fluctuating between mild and a bit chilly. It has been a windy weekend, but not on the same scale of Storm Darragh, and as it affected Scotland more than the rest of the UK, our Londoncentric media has made very little mention of it.

It was breezy and chilly here in Tiverton today (Sunday 22nd Dec) with showers in the morning (with some hail) and an afternoon high of 8°C which is around average for mid-December. The run up to and through Christmas will be increasingly mild, but also dull + cloudy - this is becoming a repeating theme for the festive period. It should turn a little colder by the end of the week, but still with average temperatures, and we should be predominently dry here in the south. Further forward, there are signs of sometihng a bit colder in the far reaches of current model runs, but that is often the case at 10 days+ at this time of the year!

EDIT: The CET for December was 6.9°C (+2.4°C) up to the 23rd and the EWR was 75mm also up to the 23rd which is 72% of the monthly average.

[Simon Culling]

My previous post on Sunday 22nd December was the last time we saw any sunshine here in Tiverton as the high pressure has delivered six days (including today, Sat 28th Dec) of grey leaden skies and very misty conditions with occassional very fine drizzle. I would imagine their has been a big increase in SAD cases troubling our already overstretched medical services. However, as the high moves away slowly and deeper into Europe, we should see an increase in the wind which will help to break up this stubborn stratus sheet - we might see some sunshine tomoroow before the rain arrives on Monday!

It has not been all doom and gloom as a low level inversion has meant parts of SW England, Wales and the England/Scotland borders area have been above the cloud sheet and seen the sun. On Boxing Day we were dark and foggy here in Tiverton with an afternoon temperature of 6°C, but the higher parts of Exmoor and Dartmoor (above about 1000ft amsl) were above the inversion and enjoyed a sunny day with plenty of warm sunshine and top temperatures around 14°C. The attached sounding from Camborne (in the far SW of England) for 12Z on Thursday shows the inversion well and the screen grab from the Zoom Earth (also for 12Z) site shows the two holes in the cloud very well.

[Simon Culling]

As we approach the New Year, the high pressure is finally moving away further to the east and the influence of the Atlantic is reasserting itself. The more changeable weather has been affecting Scotland for a couple of days with a front stuck (W-E aligned) across the country with well over 100mm of rainfall on western hills. The is an Amber rain warning in place for today (31st December) for parts of central northern Scotland straddling the Great Glen and three severe flood warnings have already resulted. Not gonig to be a nice Hogmany for some up north.

As this front moves south tonight and tomorrow, a wave will run along it, and we will get some heavy rain and strong winds here in the south, although it does not look like this will be a named storm. After the cold front clears it will become a lot colder for all of the UK with a few snow showers in the north, but here in the south, we should finally have a couple of sunny (and cold) days on Thurs + Fri with some sharp frosts overnight.

The CET for December was 6.8°C (+2.2°C) up to the 29th and the EWR was 77mm also up to the 29th which is 74% of the monthly average.

[Orion]

Flooding in England:

Hundreds of people have been forced to leave their homes after heavy rain and floods battered large parts of north-west England, leaving cars abandoned and cancelling trains.

Greater Manchester Police declared a major incident after torrential downpours across Stockport, Bolton, Didsbury, Harpurhey, Stalybridge and Wigan - with large parts of Lancashire and Cheshire also hit on New Year's Day.

Flats at Meadow Mill in Stockport were evacuated with about 400 residents being moved to a council refuge centre at Holdsworth Mill in nearby Reddish. ...

More at link: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c93845l3q1zo

[Simon Culling]

Thanks for posting the BBC article, Orion. The Greater Manchester urban area had roughly 50-80mm of rain over its entirity on the first day of 2025 with considerable flooding as a result. The attached map (from the Roost Weather site) are the rainfall totals for the 24 hours to 09Z on Wednesday 1st January 2025 and shows the heavy rainfall extended to all of Lancashire + Cumrbia and N Wales. A very wet start to the New Year for these parts, but by a statistical quirk, this rainfall will actually be included in the December and 2024's figures.

Much colder air has spread south across all of the UK overnight into Tuesday with a sprinkling of snow in the north and a frost for us in the south - including here in Tiverton for only the second frost of the winter months so far this season. Looks cold ahead well into next week.

[Simon Culling]

As mentioned in my last post, it has turned a lot colder here in the UK since Thursday with sharp frosts overnight and some snow in more northern parts + especailly in Scotland. Overnight temperatures have fallen as low as -10°C in NE Scotland this morning (Sat 4th Jan) and much of the UK is now under a snow watch. Rain will push into southern and south western counties this afternoon and evening and turn to snow as it spreads further north and east and there are Amber snow warnings in place for up to 20-40cm over the higher ground (say 500ft) in Wales, the Midlands and much of Northern England. These warnings last into Sunday, but the snow will turn to rain in quite a few places except Northern England as milder air briefly pushes in from the south. Quite a messy and difficult couple of days for the forecasters where they will struggle to win whatever happens!

Down here in Tiverton we have had three frosty nights and both Thursday and Friday were sunny with highs of 4-5°C, so very pleasant winters' days. We will see plenty of rain later today and into Sunday with maybe a lttle sleet on the leading edge of the rain. The temperature will slowly rise overnight and into Sunday and may reach 14°C briefly before it turns much colder again for Monday. Most of next week looks to be on the chilly side.

[Simon Culling]

A very busy weekend of weather here in the UK and difficult for the forecasters. We have had heavy rain, heavy snow, freezing rain, ice pellets and the kitchen sink all thrown in with quite a bit of disruption to travellers from the snow and later from the flooding. Surprisingly, this was not a named storm. The worst of the snow has been, as expected, from the Midlands northwards, with the NE of England the worst hit with around 20cm quite widely and up to a (reported) 40cm on the moors. The photo attached was taken in Skipton in North Yorkshire and shows around 15-20cm of level snow on Sunday morning and it came from this tweet:

https://x.com/CarolePaley/status/1875843833193455832

Here in Tiverton we had a little sleet on Saturday afternoon, but the main point of interest was the fall of ice pellets which lasted roughly an hour and a half before turning to all rain around 6:30pm. This gave a light cover of clear ice balls around 1-2mm in diameter - they are effectively frozen rain drops, and not something we see very often in the UK. They made a clicketty clacketty noise on SE facing windows and a sort of hissing or swishing noise as the fell if you were outside. This made up for missing the snow! Since Saturday, we have had north of 60mm of rain here in Tiverton and it became very mild on Sunday (up to 14°C) before the colder air returned south for today (Mon 6th Jan). Looks like it will be a cold week ahead with possibly a dusting of snow for us in the south on Wednesday.

[Simon Culling]

It has continued cold here in the UK with further snow in places. Yesterday (Weds 8th Jan) a small low ran along the English Channel and gave snow to much of southern England (south of the M4 motorway), but generally no more than a cm or two. Here in Tiverton we were included in an Amber Snow Warning, but we had 3mm of sleet and wet snow that produced no more than a brief dusting of snow. The higher parts of Dartmoor and Exmoor, where virtually nobody lives had up to around 10cm, so I am not quite sure why the Amber warning was issued. Bit like the VAR TV refereeing decisions in the Premier League - we never get a thought through explanation as to why!!

We have seen some cold nights this week, but again it has been the northern half of the UK that has seen the severe frosts - four nights have seen lows below -10°C and as low as -13.3°C at Loch Glascarnoch on Monday morning. Here in Tiverton, the coldest morning has been today with just -2°C.

One area that seems to have been overlooked in the cold spelll has been the south of Eire which is not known for winter extremes. Over last weekend inland parts of southern Eire saw snow for most of the time with pictures suggesting depths of at least 30cm in places. See the linked tweet and attached photo copied from it - which was taken on Sunday in the village of Knocknagoshel in County Kerry. This amount of snow is pretty rare for this part of the British Isles but unfortunately, I cannot find any official figures for this event - hopefully Met Eireann will produce a report in due course.

https://x.com/KieranMcA22/status/1875848439227154754

[spwill]

When I was living in London I recall seeing ice pellets( frozen rain) on a very wintry day unlike the freezing rain they get in USA.

[Simon Culling]

Hello spwill. Both freezing rain and ice pellets are fairly rare visitors to the UK and particularly the former. Ice pellets are more common, but generally tend to last for short periods - the hour and a half fall we had last weekend was unusual. The 12Z sounding (on the 4th) at Camborne at the far SW end of Cornwall did show a slightly warmer nose of air between 800-1000m above the ground, but the surface temeprature there was some 3-4°C higher than mid-Devon, so it did not fully reflect the classic profile needed for ice pellet fornmation. As we did not get any snow in Tiverton, the ice pellets were a nice consolation.

The attached diagram is copied from the Wikipedia page on ice pellets, but makes the point about the slightly warmer layer above freezing point sandwiched between two freezing levels. On last Saturday evening, the surface air temeprature was 1°C in Tiverton, but was -1°C on the surrounding hills (about 500ft higher), which was just enough to refreeze the partially melted snowflakes.

Last night (Thurs into Fri) was the coldest of the wnter so far with -14.5°C recorded at Altnaharra in the far north of Scotland, but with the winds staying light and the inversion still in place in the northern valleys, the mercury has fallen to -17°C this evening (at 8pm local time) at both Altnaharra and Kinbrace. If the inversion holds, we could see a sub -20°C minimum tonight into Saturday morning. Meanwhile, down here in the SW, despite the cloud now clearing, we do not even have a frost yet - it is +1°C at 8pm!

EDIT: The 24 hours maximums (09Z Fri-09Z Sat) were -9.6°C and -9.4°C respectively for Kinbrace Hatchery + Altnaharra. It's a different world up there in the far north!!

[Simon Culling]

The temperature did not get quite as low as expected overnight into Saturday (11th Jan), but did fall to -18.9°C at Altnaharra, to -17.9°C at Kinbrace Hatchery and to -16.1°C at Aviemore. These are the lowest UK temperatures in January since 2010.

It has turned much milder this week and most of the snow has now melted, even up on the higher ground. The transition to warmer weather has not been marked by much rainfall, so this has not exacerbated the snow melt and hence not much flooding. The temeprature peaked at 13.9°C at Achargart in Western Scotland on Monday.

Down here in the south, the high pressure is still having an influence on our weather (and TV reception!) and it has remained mostly cool with a nip of frost overnight where the cloud has broken up. But today, it warmed up a bit and it reached 11°C here in Tiverton in a little afternoon sunshine. Most pleasant. The forecast for the next five days is for dry weather with variable cloud and some sunshine and with temperatures around normal. Rather boring, in fact.

The CET for January was 1.6°C (-2.2°C) up to the 13th and the EWR was 54mm up to the 12th which is 58% of the monthly average of 94mm.

[Simon Culling]

High pressure has continued to dominate the UK weather keeping things rather quiet and unfortunately also rather dull - any sunshine has generally been 'around the edges' and in short supply with the Sc sheet holding fast in most places. This has certainly been the case here in Tiverton and the temepratures have generally been around or a little below average. In the last couple of days we have drawn a feed off the near continent and under the cloud it has got colder day by day - much of southern and eastern England had maximums of 2-5°C today (Sat 18th Jan) will the dull overcast making it feel on the cold side.

High pressure will slowly lose its grip on the UK this coming week with the very cold blast over much of America giving quite a boost to the Atlantic jet stream downwind of us. Whilst most of the coming week will be dull and cloudy and rather cool, the weather will liven up late in the week and into next weekend - some forecast charts have very deep lows pencilled-in for us!

Cannot find the usual Met Office monthly summary for December (usually a press release), but this rather more official document states December 2024 was provisionally the fifith warmest in their UK temperature series dating back to 1884. As well as very mild, it was generally rather wet and also very dull (about 60% of what is already a low monthly figure). The rainfall was rather unevenly split between a wet north and a drier than average south.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/binaries/c ... int_v1.pdf

The final CET for December was 6.8°C (+2.3°C) and the final EWR was 161mm which is 156% of the monthly average. On the 366 year CET series, this December was the joint 21st warmest.

[Simon Culling]

We have a plethora of warnings for the arrival of Storm Eowyn on Friday, with Amber ones for the wind. The very cold Arctic air covering virtually all of North America is sharpening the temperature contrast across the Atlantic Polar Front and has helped produce a very strong jet stream across the Atlantic reported up to 250mph in speed. The depression that will become Storm Eowyn has only just started to form off the eastern seaboard, but will race across the Atlantic and deepen explosively and peak at a current predicted low of around 940mb as it skirts north of Ireland and into Scotland on Friday. The Amber Warnings, that may well be lifted to Red, cover N Irleand, N England and into Southern Scotland and carry advice for gusts to 90mph+ on the coasts and hills. Met Eireann already has Red Warnings for most of its territory, but only lists gusts as 'greater than 130km/hr'.

Down here in the SW we will have a very windy and wet day on Friday, but at the moment the worst looks to miss us to the north. A series of further deep lows look likely for Sunday and into early next week and they may be a little further south. Quite a contrast to the last couple of calm and mostly dry albeit very dull weeks of weather - at least with a lively Atlantic we will get some sunshine between the rain bands.

EDIT (Thurs 23rd Jan): As expected, the weather warnings have been upgraded to Amber and Red, with the latter covering all of N Ireland and much of S Scotland to include the Glasgow and Edinbugh areas. Wind gusts forecast to be "widely 80-90mph and up to 100mph in more exposed places". Some of the model runs are suggesting gusts to 110-120mph on the west coast of Eire, especially Galway Bay. Gunna be a windy day.

[Simon Culling]

Storm Eowyn gave the northern half of the UK and large parts of Eire a very windy day on Friday (24th Jan) as it deepened to around 940mb in the early hours as it skirted the north of Ireland and then moved NE into Scotland. These are the highest gusts I can find. A couple (noted *) are provisional as some of the Met Eirean sites were affected by power cuts.

114mph at Mace Head(reported 10-min mean of 135km/hr and gust of 183km/hr at 05Z are new Irish records)
101mph at Malin Head (far north of Eire)
100mph at Drumalbin (southern Scotland - well inland)
97mph* at Knock Airport (Eire)
96mph at Brizlee Wood (NE England)
93mph at Aberdaron (NW Wales) + Finner Camp* (NW Eire)

Many people seem to have heeded the warnings as only one fatality has been reported.

The weather looks to remain very unsettled into next week as low after low approaches NW Europe.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c78x4503neyo

[Simon Culling]

Following the departure of Storm Eowyn it has remained very unsettled (and a little on the cool side) with a further low (Storm Herminia - named by AEMET, the Spanish Met Office) slowly crossing the UK bringing us further strong winds and plenty of rain, showers............and a lot of thunderstorms, which is rather unusual for the time of year. This storm affected the UK from Sunday onwards and both Sunday + Monday (26th + 27th Jan) were very showery over southern England with frequent bands of thunderstorms giving deluges and planty of hail - some of the stones on Monday were up to 20-25mm across. The chart below is for the 30 hour period ending 18Z on Monday and shows the unusual amount of thundery activity over the SW Approaches, northern France + the southern part of England.

Here in Tiverton we had a few grumbles of thunder on Sunday afternoon (amid the heavy rain), but around 5am on Monday morning we had quite a storm with around 15 lightning flashes and some loud 'shotgun' thunder. We also had some noisy wind driven hailstones hitting the window panes.

It has been drier since then and we look to be going into another quieter spell with high pressure dominating. The models are toying with a cold easterly flow from about 6th/7th Feb, but confidence appears rather low at this time.

The CET for January was 3.3°C (-0.5°C) up to the 28th and the EWR was 99mm up to the 27th which is 105% of the monthly average.

[Simon Culling]

The weather has been a lot quieter here in the UK in the last week and since all the atmospheric noise of the wekeend before. It has stayed predominently dry with alternative sunny and cloudy days. Not much to be inspired or interested by as even the temperatures are running roughly around average. Looks to be turning colder this week as an easterly arrives, but the source of the air is more Balkans than Siberia so not that cold.

Thr final CET for January was 3.4°C (-0.4°C) and the final EWR was 109mm which is 115% of the monthly average.

The attached article from the BBC from Saturday concerning the possible shutdown of the AMOC (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation) has attracted some interest. This story has persisted for a while, and whilst somewhat alarmist, has been gaininig support from climate scientists as there is evidence of previous weakenings. Any cool down on the scale mentioned won't be arriving soon and would more likely be a concern for the next century rather than this one. It does not make it clear how summers might be affected, but if more continentally influenced, would mean warmth rather than cold. This would give the UK a doubling of its nornal average temperature range. Won't be here to see it, though.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn938ze4yyeo

[TonyT]

The weather has been a lot quieter here in the UK in the last week and since all the atmospheric noise of the wekeend before. It has stayed predominently dry with alternative sunny and cloudy days. Not much to be inspired or interested by as even the temperatures are running roughly around average. Looks to be turning colder this week as an easterly arrives, but the source of the air is more Balkans than Siberia so not that cold.

Thr final CET for January was 3.4°C (-0.4°C) and the final EWR was 109mm which is 115% of the monthly average.

The attached article from the BBC from Saturday concerning the possible shutdown of the AMOC (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation) has attracted some interest. This story has persisted for a while, and whilst somewhat alarmist, has been gaininig support from climate scientists as there is evidence of previous weakenings. Any cool down on the scale mentioned won't be arriving soon and would more likely be a concern for the next century rather than this one. It does not make it clear how summers might be affected, but if more continentally influenced, would mean warmth rather than cold. This would give the UK a doubling of its nornal average temperature range. Won't be here to see it, though.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn938ze4yyeo

There are plenty of studies showing the AMOC is in good health and stable. It's only modelling which is suggesting otherwise, and a lot of disagreements between models on that. Rahmstorf continues to push the gloom and doom scenario with very little support from anyone else.

[Simon Culling]

TonyT, that is not strictly true. There are studies of data that show some slowing of AMOC particularly at depth. However, I agree that the causes are not clear and the trend could just as easily reverse as continue. The model studies show the potential risk to NW Europe in the medium to long term and also that not all changes due to climate change will neccessarily translate to higher temperatures for everyone.

https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/atlantic-meri ... -atlantic/

[TonyT]

Nothing to see here. Move on.
See https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467- ... TfYX8_A%3D

"The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is crucial for global ocean carbon and heat uptake, and controls the climate around the North Atlantic. Despite its importance, quantifying the AMOC’s past changes andassessing its vulnerability to climate change remains highly uncertain. ... Based on the here identified relationship and observation-based estimates of the past air-sea heat flux in the North Atlantic from reanalysis products, the decadal averaged AMOC at 26.5°N has not weakened from 1963 to 2017 although substantial variability exists at all latitudes."

[Simon Culling]

Tony, the link provided is yet another 'modelled' study and that is all we are going to see on this issue - there are simply not enough meaningful observations......yet. I am open to this idea, but do not share the view (opinion!) that AMOC will be shutting down soon. However, the atmospheric circulation patterns over NW Europe have definitely changed in the last 50 years (my time observing the weather), but of course, some wll argue this is nothing more than natural variability. I try to keep to the facts and for the UK they are rising temperatures, rainfall and sunshine in the last 100 years and I would like to understand why this (perhaps) 'local' change is occurring beyond the broadbrush of climate change. I fear that a definitive answer will not materialise before my demise.