By Philip Eden

November has been a mild and fairly sunny month, mostly dry until the 20th, but the last ten days brought some deluges of almost biblical proportions.

Mean maximum temperature ranged from 13.5C at Torquay in Devon to 8.3C at Carterhouse in the Scottish Borders, and was everywhere 1.5 to 2.5 degC above the long-term mean. Mean minimum temperature was also above average, but by a smaller amount. The Central England Temperature, which takes account of both day and night-time temperatures, ended up at 8.3C, and that is 1.4 degC above the average for the standard reference period 1971-2000. During the last 100 years only seven Novembers were warmer, although two of those happened very recently � in 1994 and 2002.

There were some exceptional individual temperatures during the first week. The highest reading of all, 20.2C at Lochcarron in Wester Ross on the 7th, has only been exceeded in four other Novembers � 1997, 1946, 1938 and 1906 � anywhere in the UK. There were few low temperatures of note, although Altnaharra in Sutherland dipped to �8.3C early on the morning of Sunday 23rd, but frost was an infrequent visitor in most parts of the country and several places in southern England and south Wales experienced a frost-free month.

Rainfall in November varied widely, largely thanks to the prolonged weekend downpour of 22nd/23rd in Southeast England and East Anglia which was followed by another deluge in the same region on 25th/26th. At Charlwood, near Gatwick airport, 123mm of rain fell between the 21st and 26th alone; put another way, six weeks� worth of rain fell in six days. The 29th was very wet in western Scotland and Northern Ireland, and over 60mm of rain fell in 48 hours at Eskdalemuir (Dumfriesshire) and Loch Sloy (Argyll). By contrast, it was a dry month in many other parts of the UK, and in the areas around Newcastle, Edinburgh and Inverness there was less than 30mm of rain � approximately 40 per cent of the normal amount � during the entire month. Taking England and Wales as a whole, this month�s total rainfall of 105mm is a mere four per cent above the long-term average.

Scotland and Northern Ireland have enjoyed a very sunny November, but total sunshine duration in the Midlands was slightly below average. Sunniest of all was Falmouth in Cornwall where the sun shone for 112 hours, approximately 60 per cent more than usual, but the total of 68 hours at Kirkwall in Orkney represents an excess of 80 per cent over the local average.

(c) Philip Eden