Local Forecasts, History & Records
On 15th January a sub-marine volcano, Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai, just off the coast of Tonga, exploded with incredible force. The blast wave was visible from space and caused tsunami waves all around the perimeter of the Pacific Ocean. The eruption was some 10,000 miles away from the UK, on the other side of the World. For those that don’t know, …
The latest 30 years means have been published by the Met Office. The period covers the 30 years between 1991-2020 and will be used going forward as a representative of climate norms. The figures show a warming of about 0.3 degC overall, particularly in late winter/spring, with a slight increase in sunshine, but also wetter, particularly the 2nd half of …
December 2021 turned into a very dull and boring month after all the activity at the end of November because of Storm Arwen. When I say dull, I mean that there really were long periods when the sun just didn’t shine for us. Seemingly endless periods of damp, clammy cloudy weather. This was especially the case around mid-month, when anticyclonic …
November 2021. A very mild first three weeks, often settled and fine, but with a colder final week. The highest temperature of the month was 17.6 ºC at Nantwich (Cheshire) on the 9th; with the Foehn effect it reached 16.3 ºC at Dyce (Aberdeenshire) on the 18th. The lowest temperature of the month was -8.7 ºC at Shap (Cumbria) on …
October 2021 in Durham can only be described as Autumnal. There was rain on 23 days, with a peak reached on 5th October when a phenomenal 43.8mm of rain was recorded. The thermometer got to 20 degC on the 7th and 8th. A good effort for October. By the middle of the month, it was getting noticeably colder, and getting …
As some of you may have noticed, yesterday (October 5th 2021) was extremely wet! After a long spell with no real heavy rain, it seemingly all arrived on one day. We’d been warned to expect heavy rainfall, but it proved even wetter than that. Durham and North East England just seemed to be in the wrong place this time! Here’s …
Apologies for the late posting of September’s report. September 2021 continued the warm summer theme into autumn. There wasn’t exactly an abundance of sunshine, but it had a very pleasant feel to it. As is usual with September, the temperatures don’t really start to drop away until the very end, and this year was no exception. However, this was the …
Just after the end of WW1, September 1919 was an unusual month as it went from a late summer heatwave to early winter snowfall in the space of just a few days. A hot southerly flow had allowed temperatures to climb as high as 32.2C at Raunds on the 11th September 1919. However by the 12th, the wind flow switched …
After two good months in June and July, August was the party pooper. Also, our party wasn’t spoilt as badly as those in some Southern areas, but it was easily the worst of the three summer months of 2021. Mean Temp : 15.7C At one point, the mean was running at about 16.2C, but dropped towards the end of the …
July 2021 turned out well. The first week proved to be quite wet, with the bulk of the month’s final rainfall falling this week. There was 48.5mm recorded altogether in what was a very short unseasonal spell. High pressure then built in to give us a sustained spell of warm, dry and sunny weather for the next three weeks. The …
It’s July 24th 2021 and today is the first day i’ve felt remotely comfortable in my own house for weeks. The heat has been slowly building this month, with incredibly stuffy nights keeping me awake and making me feel progressively tired. Normally our living room is a cool haven, facing North and receiving no direct sunshine, but even this hasn’t …
There was a lot of hot but turbulent weather early in July 2021 which spawned some thunderstorms and funnel clouds in places. Funnel clouds and tornadoes are rare in the North of England. This shot was taken over Darlington on 10th July. Technically this was not a tornado, as it didn’t touch down on the ground, but it was spectacular …