It has mostly felt like a quiet, settled and cool February, and indeed there have been no named storms to disturb our days. However, it still proved to be just a little wetter and warmer than the long term average.

The barometer shows how we went into February on a more or less settled note, and indeed finished the month settled as well. The absence of named storms didn’t however mean an absence of depressions; but overall, though, this February had an average air pressure well above the average for our 17 years of comparable records, at 1020.8 hPa compared with the long term average of 1015.5 hPa. The highest pressure of 1043.2 hPa was the second highest max for February, and the lowest at 1006.4 hPa was the third highest minimum.

There were a couple of periods of rainy days, mainly from 7th to 10th and from 20th to 26th, resulting in a slightly wetter February at 50.0mm than the long term average of 45.0mm in our 41 years of records. It’s interesting that February is on average our driest month, just ahead of March, although March is slightly drier per day. So much for winter rains! We had 15 days on which it rained, pretty much the average, and our wettest day was the 24th with 13.4mm, just slightly above the long term average for the wettest February day.

The temperatures reflected the settled period in the middle two weeks of the month showing that those days were generally quite chilly. In fact we had five nights with a frost (and a few others cold enough for a ground frost), but the return of warmer weather at the start of the last week of the month lifted temperatures to our maximum for the month of 15.4°C on the 21st, exceeded in only seven of the 41 Februarys in our records. Surprisingly the minimum for the month of -1.2°C has been exceeded by six warmer February minima. The overall mean for the month was 4.8°C, above the long term average of 4.3°C, and places this February as the 20th warmest of our 41 years of records -although it is worth noting that this is the coolest February since the current weather station was installed at the beginning of 2020.

The wind charts show clearly the period of prolonged winds from an easterly quarter during the cold snap of the middle of the month. Generally the winds weren’t especially strong, however, with the maximum gust of 31mph (Force 6) on the 23rd being the fourth lowest February maximum.

The sunshine chart shows that there was a period of seven overcast days coinciding with wet weather at the start of the cold snap. The total sunshine hours for the month was 46.0 hours, coming on just 16 days of the month.

Will March be a launchpad for Spring or a sting in the tail from Winter? Come back next month and see what the analysis of our records reveals!