So, December certainly brought us a string of unsettled weather. It started off rather mild but it wasn’t long before another cold snap arrived. The winds turned northerly bringing with it a polar maritime airmass. This plunged temperatures back down into single figures with overnight frost. It wasn’t long before the Atlantic swung into action, bringing a series of weather fronts our way together with wind and rain. During early December we saw plenty of showers, mist, fog and our forever favourite mizzle. Temperatures still stayed quite low for a while.
During the first week of December we saw three low pressure systems. These swept in off the Atlantic each one had a lot of rain along with strong winds, some had speeds of between 50-70+ mph. The rain produced areas of flooding due to already saturated ground. This prompted the Met office to issue its first warning for wind and rain on the 4th of December, just as everyone had their Christmas decorations up. Wind speeds did exceed 60mph and indeed brought an awful lot of rainfall with it.
It wasn’t long before Storm Darragh was named, with an AMBER warning issued for Cornwall.
This storm certainly packed a punch, as we pondered over weather charts we were seeing some very concerning windspeeds. Although 70-80mph winds were forecast we were seeing much higher, then low and behold Padstow topped 115mph gusts!!
This storm brought down trees, tiles, ripped peoples fences apart, even had people struggling to walk against the wind in Newquay. This was a long and drawn out storm which also brought sleepless nights with winds howling around rooftops and rattling anything that the winds we able to blow through.
There were thousands of powercuts too, with some residents left for days without power. Not forgetting the disruption on the travel network.
Storm Darragh took over the news headlines for a few days, once cleared through a deadly calm shrouded most of Cornwall.
High pressure followed, taking charge for a while and finally brought a period of settled weather. Along came anticyclonic gloom to shroud the skies for days on end. And of course it brought mizzle, mist and fog, barely a sunny day in sight. The winds varied from a west/northwesterly direction and kept temperatures in single figures.
By mid December another low pressure had swung into action off the Atlantic. We issued our own weather advisory for this. Thankfully it didn’t affect us too much, although winds of 40-60mph are enough to blow the decorations around. More rainfall was expected during the third week of December, and certainly we saw plenty of it. Bringing poor conditions and areas of localised flooding. Around the third week a couple more lows. This was another naughty deepening area of low pressure, which affected the far north of the UK. The jet stream had become powerful flowing over the UK, dragging in polar maritime air with it. Wind speeds again topped 50-60mph and down came the temperatures with a feel like of -4°C in places. The Met office issued another wind warning, just a few days before Christmas, as everyone was out Christmas shopping some winds topped 70mph, especially along the coast and higher ground.
As we headed into the Christmas period the gloom returned and brought several days of overcast skies, mist fog, mizzle and not a lot of sunshine.
Temperatures for much of December ranged between 2°C and 14°C. There were cold snaps, but over the Christmas period temperatures climbed to 14°C.
Looking into the new year we start with a Met office wind warning, and the risk of a bit of snow.