Our January weather was arguably dominated by the cold spell which lasted much of the first two weeks of the month. This spell was enough to end the run of 16 consecutive months of temperatures above the long term average, giving this January an overall mean temperature of 3.6°C, which is 0.6°C below the average.

There was little snow, but there were nine days with a frost, and one “ice day” (where the temperature never rises above zero) on the 10th when the maximum for the day was -0.2°C. That makes this the 13th January in our 41 years of records to have an ice day.

Lowest for the month was -4.6°C on the 12th, which was 0.6°C colder than the average January minimum but not exceptional. The maximum for the month was 11.7°C on New Year’s Day, before the chill set in; that was a whisker above the long term average maximum for January.

The main (and only named) storm for the country as a whole was Storm Eowyn, which caused considerable damage to the west and north of the British Isles but had relatively much less impact in Epping. Our main storms were a depression that moved through on 6th January, and another following Eowyn on the 27th to 29th. The first gave us our lowest pressure of the month, 970.6 hPa (or millibars if you prefer), the second lowest pressure in our 17 years of comparable records, and also our wettest day on the 5th, with 25.4mm – exactly an inch of rain, which equalled the total for our wettest January day on record in 1982. Unsurprisingly the deluge resulted in some localised flooding in the area.

The strongest winds of the month however came also on New Year’s Day, courtesy of a deep depression at the tail end of the old year which had a sting in its tail. Top wind gust was 37mph, or Force 7.

Overall, January totalled 71.6mm of rain, which was just over 10mm more than the long term average. That this fell on 14 days in the month, rather less than the long term average of 18.6 days, indicated that when it rained, it rained hard.

Finally to the sunshine records. Only 33.5 hours of sunshine was recorded across the month, which included no less than 18 days with no sun at all. The bulk of the dull days came throughout the third week of the month. Sunniest day was the 30th with 5.1 hours.

So was January an anomaly or are we going to see more chilly weather in February? Check with us next month to find out!

Measure	Unit	Minimum	Average	Maximum	Average min	Average max	Total
Relative humidity	%	56	87	96
Temperature	°C	-4.6	3.6	11.7	1.1	6.3
Wind source (most common/highest gust)	Sector		N	S
Wind speed	mph		2.7	37		15.6
Rain daily accumulation	mm		2.3	25.4			71.6
Barometric pressure	hPa	970.6	1012.3	1040.8
Solar irradiance during daylight	W/m² kWh/m²		69	390		199	18.3
Sunshine (according to University of California formula)	Hours		1.1	5.1			33.5