January 7th: A very unsettled period -a gust of 89mph was recorded at Capel Curig in North
Wales around 4am. Further to the north snow fell across parts of Northern Ireland and southern Scotland as well
as over the hills of Northern England, adding to the remains of the snow still there from the 4th.
January 15th: The wet and windy period continued as a low, around 973mb crossed Wales, giving
gales or severe gales to its south, Milford on the Solent's mouth saw a gust to 78mph at 10Z and Dover to 66mph. A ship,
the Ice Prince sunk off Start Point, Devon with 5000 tons of logs on board.. most of which washed ashore along Sussex
beaches in the following week or two. It followed the wreckage almost 1 year ago of the 'Napoli', in almost the
same place and same conditions.
January 27th: a condition known
as super geostrophic flow operated. Basically it occurred because as the upper air flowed up around high
pressure to the west where the isobars were well spaced it was then squeezed around and across the north of England where
the isobars were much more tightly packed due to lower pressure across Northern Scotland. Atmospheric waves -much like waves
at sea- were formed, which brought these stronger winds aloft rolling down to the surface, this being especially pronounced
to the lee of high ground. Typically the wind becomes very gusty as these waves roll through. Leeming saw wind gusts reach
as high as 70mph and several large lorries were blown off the M1 along with some damage to trees.
Jan 31st:
January ended stormy as a very deep low crossed the N Isles of 948mb. This gave storm winds in many parts of Scotland
at times along with severe gales elsewhere. Gusts as high as 84mph were recorded at several
locations during the day including Carlisle and -unofficially- at an amateur weather station at Lee on Solent.
February 2008
Feb 4th: A windy day as a small depression across Southern Ireland deepened, moved
north east across the Irish Sea and brought a spell of wet and windy weather to the SW especially and through the Channel.
Pressure fell rapidly in places (7mb in one hour at the K3 buoy off S Ireland). Seven Stones Light Vessel near the Scilly
Isles recorded a gust of 78mph at 21Z and as the occluded front went through it gave gusts to 70mph in exposed spots
in the south and SW; Lands End recorded 71mpg at 2046Z; Polruan (south Cornwall) recorded a mean speed of 54mph and gust of
70mph around 2230Z and Milford on Sea (Dorset) 73mph early on the 5th with heavy rain and hail showers rattling in behind
the front overnight too.
Feb 15th: Half way through the month and the sunshine totals across
the UK were very high indeed. It was already sunnier than an average February for England and Wales in fact. Across England and Wales, the first half of February 2008 was sunnier than the second half of June 2007 and it was sunnier
than the first half of July 2007, quite a remarkable statistic. It was also cold and foggy overnight in places, Topcliffe
saw as low as -7.3C on the night on the 15th/16th.
Feb 20th: Some very cold nights as freezing
fog became quite persistent. Topcliffe fell to -9C on the 18th and Dishforth (Yorks) only rose to -2.9C on the 19th giving
some areas one of their coldest February days for 20 years or more. The fog was thick enough also in places for freezing
precipitation to fall from it and up to 2cm of this icy/snow like feature collected and was reported in places in the
Midlands and north.
Feb 28th: February looks likely to be remembered as a dry and very sunny month
with some local sunshine records for February being broken, especially across part of eastern England.
March 2008
March 5th: A very dry sunny start to the month after an initial cold period. The first
five days saw 31% of the rainfall normally expected and 160% of the sunshine.
March 7th: An unusually deep low around 940mb at its lowest NW of Ireland early on Monday brought
stormy weather across the UK,at least in the west.
March 16th: It was very wet in parts of central southern England over a 24 hour period. Brize
Norton (Oxon) saw as much as 40mm fall in fact as slow moving fronts gave some persistent and at times heavy rain.
March
22nd: A cold Easter with many places seeing a scattering of wintry showers or longer spells of sleet or
snow already today. Accumulations are mainly confined to high ground but an area of snow coming south on easter Sunday
gave more widespread accumulations east of a line from N Wales to the Isle of Wight. Scunthorpe reported 9cm unofficially.
At midday temperatures were as low as 1-3C in a number of places, some 7-8C below the average.
March 26th: Braemar in the Scottish Highlands saw its minimum temperature fall to -11.4C overnight,
extremely cold even in Highland Scotland for late March. This is the lowest temperature ever recorded on this date and in
fact, more remarkably perhaps, the lowest temperature so late in the spring since 1969.
