Author: Eric Gilbert

The beginning of the thaw was evident on Saturday as the air movement from the south brought a warmer airmass that saw the thermometer rise to 4.2C. This maximum was still 3.9C below average but the warmest day since the 6th.

The past night, with a minimum of -0.5C, was also the less cold night since the 7th but still 3.0C below average. The thermometer rose above zero just after 05.30 on Sunday.

Sunday dawned dull and dark with thick cloud ahead of the first rain band since 26th November with rain imminent.

The battle of the respective Atlantic and Arctic air masses has taken place over the past twenty-four hours. There was virtually no wind on Friday. Smoke from neighbours solid fuel fires indicated that the air mass direction had backed into the west and southwest but the anemometers stayed stationery for many hours.

The thermometer rose to 2.0C at 13.39, the highest maximum since the 10th but still 6.1C below the average. The temperature fell steadily late afternoon to hover around 5.0C – 6.1C minimum until just after 02.00 when the thermometer began to rise slowly to reach -1.4C at 08.00 on Saturday making it the warmest start to a day at that time since the 10th (+3.6C).

Saturday at first light revealed light high cloud but no sunshine and totally calm conditions. The forecast is for the air to come from a southerly direction, which will mean a slightly warmer day and a slow thaw.

After an extremely cold start on Thursday, from a low of -7.4C, the many hours of sunshine lifted the thermometer to 0.6C at 12.34 for a very brief period. This high was 8.0C below the long-term average.

Once again the thermometer plummeted as the afternoon and evening progressed with -2.0C at 18.15 and a minimum of -9.4C at 08.14. This extreme low was 11.9C below the 38-year average and the coldest night since 2nd and 3rd February 2019 (-11.3C).

The breeze continued from the north and minimal, often calm, a maximum movement of air was recorded at just 11mph.

Friday dawned with a bank of fog, not in the valley but over higher ground and moving around, with visibility limited to 500m at its closest.

The right-angled ground thermometer, at a depth of 5cm, registered -3.8C at 08.00.

There appears to be a significant and imminent change in our weather pattern as later today the wind is forecast to back into the southwest, a much warmer air stream. There are currently seven centres of low-pressure to the Northwest and Southeast of the UK that will begin to affect our future weather. However, the ground is very cold so there is likely to be a frost again tonight, not hard, and modest above zero temperatures on Saturday.

The Polar airmass meant another very cold day on Wednesday. The thermometer struggled to get to -1.7C by 13.00, shortly after which the temperature usually begins to drop again in our current conditions and did. However, just after 14.00 I noticed that after falling for almost an hour the thermometer began to rise again to reach the giddy heights of -0.6C, which was 8.7C below the long-term average. Even so, that made it the coldest day since 1st February 2018 when the temperature did not get above -2.0C.

With clear skies overnight and no cloud blanket to provide a duvet to minimise loss of warmth up into the atmosphere, the thermometer sank to -6.3C at 02.09 on Thursday and stayed there as at 08.00 on Thursday the thermometer still read -6.2C.

Thursday dawned with a totally clear sky with the promise of weak winter sunshine later in the morning. The humidity of 92% was the lowest this month and the lowest since 11th November.

Not surprisingly, the intense cold has penetrated the ground so that at 08.00 on Thursday morning the ground temperature at a depth of 5cm was -3.1C. This was the lowest ground temperature at that time since 21st January 2017 (-3.3C)

Update at 09.00: temperature dropped to -6.9C.

A maximum of 0.6C on Tuesday was the warmest day in three days but still a very chilly 8C below the average and the third coldest day this month. The wind backed a few degrees to come from the Northeast and picked up a little, after the previous calm days, with a maximum gust of 14mph.

The past night was again very cold due to the Arctic air with the thermometer sinking to -4.0C at 06.45 on Wednesday.

Dawn on Wednesday revealed a less cloudy sky with the cloud much higher and thinner. The barometric pressure was at its lowest this month yesterday with a minimum reading of 1004.8mb, the lowest since 24th November.