Weather records (UK)

[wellinghall]

(because I'm sad like that)

Lowest screen temperature: -17F, -27.2C, at Braemar, Grampian, Scotland, 11/2/1895 and 10/1/1982
(England: -26.1C, Newport, Shropshire, 10/1/1982; lowest maximum daytime temperature: -19.1C, Braemar, 10/1/1982)

Greatest snowfall in 12 months: 60in, 1,524mm, Upper Teesdale and Denbighshire Hills, Clwyd, Wales, 1947
(London's earliest recorded snow was 25/9/1885, and the latest was 27/5/1821)

Minimum sunshine: Nil in a month at Westminster, London, December 1890

Lowest barometric pressure: 925.5mb, 27.33in, Ochtertye, near Crieff, Tayside, 26/1/1884

Highes surface wind speed: 144mph, 231 km/h, 125 knots, Coire Cas ski lift (3,525 ft, 1,074m), Cairn Gorm, Highland, 6/3/1967

Coldest place (measured mean): 6.35C, 43.43F, Braemar, Aberdeenshire, 1959 - 1981

Heaviest hailstones: 5oz, 141g, Horsham, West Sussex, 5/9/1958

Windiest place: Fair Isle, 1974 - 1978, average 20.6mph

Comments

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Gosh, I'm glad I don't live in Braemar, which is also the coldest place this season.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Me too!

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

'Clwyd' didn't exist as a county in 1947 and it doesn't exist as one now. The 'Denbighshire Hills' were in Denbighshire in 1947 and they're in Denbighshire now. Some of them are called the 'Clwydian Range' though.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I don't fancy being on a ski lift in 144mph winds!

Also, I feel you should add the classic phrase "...since records began".

[gramarye1971]

I was wondering if the Westminster minimum sunshine reading was the result of the Krakatoa eruption in the early 1880s, but I suspect that the standard pea-soup fog weather and early sunset times might've been sufficient on their own!

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Pedant! ;-)

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

And up to the copy date for the source I am using.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I'd assumed it was a particularly bad pea-souper, but you;'re right, Krakatoa might have had something to do with it.

[el-staplador.livejournal.com]

Brr!

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Quite!

[asklepia.livejournal.com]

I visited Braemar in the last week of August 2004 and it was bloody freezing then, so the above records are not exactly surprising.

What does interest me is the longevity of many of the records - we hear so much of the last decade being the worst ever that it's a good reminder to check further back than the average newscaster goldfish memory.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

The weather presenter on local TV was asked the other night be a newsreader if he could remember weather this bad, and he said, "Oh, yes, it's just that most people have got short memories."

[asklepia.livejournal.com]

Indeed - and even if they as individuals can remember, they are almost forced into institutional inanities by the media organisations that want an excuse to say "This is the worst ever!!!!"

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Oh, quite!