Although the month began with a relatively mild day, resulting from a Westerly air flow, the wind veered into the northwest on the 2nd that introduced a flow of Arctic air for the following week.
There were also several nights with a sharp air frost, the coolest night being in the early hours of the 6th when the thermometer fell to -7.2C being a significant 8.4C below my long-term average. Light, dry snow fell in the early hours of the 5th with two short showers of light snow just after 08.00 on the 6th.
Storm Goretti arrived in the evening of the 8th. We were fortunate that the centre of the deep depression ran along central England. The strongest winds were at the periphery of the weather system with the greatest fall of snow to the north. The depression deepened rapidly with a low of 975.9mb at 19.36. As the depression tracked eastwards during the evening the wind slowly fell away and stopped briefly as the centre passed over our area and then began to pick up again as it moved away eastwards, but always light at the centre of such storms. There was a light covering of sleet and wet snow in the early hours of the 9th, that quickly disappeared as the temperature slowly rose.
There was a significant change in or weather pattern that arrived on the 11th. Another deep depression moved in from the Atlantic towards Scotland, bringing with it weather fronts which contained much warmer but moist air flow, cutting off the recent Arctic air. On the 11th, we started at 08.00 with a temperature of 3.8C that slowly increased throughout the day and early evening peaked at 10.6C, logged at 22.53. The maximum was 3.5C above my long-term January average that made it the warmest day since 18th December. This was to bring the unsettled weather for the following week.
The jet stream continued to hustle further depressions across the Atlantic further with Storm Chandra arriving on the 26th that once again produced a large total of rain (16.8mm), which made it the third wettest day of the month. Being well inland and some distance from the centre of the low-pressure system we were on the periphery of the worst conditions. The barometric pressure over the twenty-four-hour period showed a drop of 20.5mb, this was classed as a ‘weather bomb’, which is used when the pressure drops at least 20mb in a twenty-four-hour period.
The month ended with a continuation of the recent unsettled conditions. The high-pressure system centred to the northeast of the UK acting as a ‘blocking high’, deflecting the low-pressure systems to the north, after arriving over the UK.
The significant monthly rainfall amounted to 167.6mm being 187% of my 42-year record, which made it the second wettest January I have recorded since records began in 1984. The wettest January was logged in 2014 when a deluge of 219.1mm was recorded. My records show that there were seven days when the daily rainfall reached into double figures with a substantial fall of 21.6mm on the 8th. There were just six days that were totally dry.
Not only was it a very wet month but a mild month with the mean temperature 0.36C above my long-term average. The extreme daytime temperatures were 11.2C on the 12th and a very cold day on the 5th when the thermometer did not get above 1.6C. Looking at the minima there was a very warm night on the 12th/13th when the thermometer did not drop below 8.3C, conversely, the coldest night occurred in the early hours of the 6th when the thermometer sank to -7.2C being a significant 8.4C below my long-term average.
The unsettled weather gave us many days of warm, moist Atlantic air that denied us sunshine that would have lifted the temperature by day. Conversely, the thick cloud acted as a duvet minimising any loss of warmth into the atmosphere by night. As a result during several days, there was little variation between the maximum and minimum temperatures. An example would be just 2.2C on the 21st/22nd, referred to as the diurnal range of temperature.
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