Provisional figures for January reveals a dry month across the UKand Ireland with temperatures a fraction below average in England and slightly above average across Ireland. It was also a less windy month than the 30 year average.
The rainfall cone chart for Glasgow is interesting; in the Speedwell Weather graph above it shows the cumulative rainfall (black line) at the low (dry) end of the historical range (grey shading) and it was much drier than January last year (blue line).
February started on a very cold note and it was very snowy in some parts, but weather patterns have now changed and it's become considerably milder. We're expecting a deep depression to come in from the nearby Atlantic later this week (Friday 8 and Saturday 9 February). The centre of the low pressure is forecast to cross Northern Ireland and Scotland but the strongest winds -with gales or severe gales -will be to the south of the centre. Current forecasts bring peak gusts of 60 to 80mph across Ireland and in parts of the Irish Sea before crossing Wales and England, withsome disruptionpossible from these gales.
Looking ahead to the remainder of the month, the consensus forecast is for Atlantic weather patterns to continue. Overall it should be fairly mild and breezy with rain at times. Occasionally, high pressure over mainland Europe will influence our weather, bringing short lived quieter, calmer and colder spells but at this stage we're not expecting anymore extreme cold weather.
The Metdesk map in the summary imageshows the average pressure pattern for 15 to 19 February, with the main low pressure established to the west of Iceland and the high pressure near the Azores.
We'll be back in a few weeks to look ahead to see what type of weather we can expect in the first month of spring.