News about Ferryhill Weather

January 2008

A very wet, but mild month, with almost twice the normal amount of rainfall. The total ended up just 0.2mm under the 100mm mark. This eclipsed the previous record for January at Ferryhill by some 35mm. The year started with a very wet New Years Day, with 19mm faliing on the 1st. This would have been the 'wettest day' in most months here, but it was beaten on the 21st when a new wettest day for January was set. 23mm fell in the 24hrs. There was 4cm of snow cover on the 3rd January, but it soon melted.

 

June 2007

This month has proved to be quite a wet one, with 80.0mm of rain falling (although 111.8mm recorded in Durham) - not a remarkably high total (146% of the 1971-2000 mean), but considering the first 11 days of the month were completely dry it's quite noteable. Only two dry days were experienced after that. It could have been much wetter, the extreme weather which caused extensive flooding in South Yorkshire towards the end of the month stayed just to the south of us in Ferryhill.

 

One thing that has been noteable about June 2007 is it's extreme dullness. It was one of the dullest Junes in North East England - the total of 101.5hrs made it the 4th dullest since 1882 and the worst sunshine total since 1987 (89.4hrs). It was less sunny than May, which was itself less sunny than April. It was thought this ‘reverse’ sequence must be unique, but in fact it has now happened 7 times in the April-June period since 1882

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April 2007

Yet another record breaker, April 2007 was a whopping 0.6 degC warmer than the previous warmest April (1865) on the Central England Temperature series. Again, a long term record beaten. Also noteable is the fact that 2006 was the warmest year on record and the first third of this year is more than 2 degC warmer than the equivalent period in 2006. Quite incredible.

 

September 2006

Another one for the record books, September 2006 is the warmest September on record, beating September 1729 in the CET series. This record had stood for 277 years up to this year, and was the longest running record of any 'warmest month'. Recently broken 'warmest' records are seemingly gathered in the second half of the year, with the longest standing remaining record for July-December resting with December 1974. The absolute high for September was raised to 27.1 degC on 21st of September 2006. There were no cold nights, and rainfall was slightly above average.

 

August 2006

A total contrast to July, August was considerably cooler and was generally the second dullest August on record (since 1912, nowhere near as cold though).

 

July 2006

This month has created history as it is the warmest month on record. The records go back to 1850 at Durham, and this month has beaten July 1983 to the highest monthly mean temperature. To put things into perspective, the average temperature is now 2 degC above that recorded as an average for July 1976, which was regarded as the best summer in living memory. There have been only three days that haven't reached 20 degC in the month, and 14 days consecutively over 25 degC since 16th.

Comparison with other Julys                                                              

                                                              

	2006	2005*	2004	2003	2002	2001	2000
Mean Temp	19.0	15.8	15.1	16.8	15.2	16.2	14.1
Abs Max	29.9	26.9	26.1	28.3	26.2	27.1	24.1
Days > 25 degC	18	2	1	3	2	3	0
Days > 20 degC	20	11	12	18	10	18	10
Days with Rain	7	5	21	14	18	15	20
Rainfall Total mm	14	28	59	51	62	37	43