The average afternoon maximum temperature ranged from 10.7C at Pendennis Point, near Falmouth, Cornwall, to 4.7C at Carter Bar in the Scottish Borders. Night-time averages varied between 7.7C at St Mary’s in the Isles of Scilly and 0.4C at Bournemouth airport which lies in a noted frost hollow to the north of town. The Central England Temperature for the month was 4.6C, just 0.5 degC below the long-term average, and it ranked 37th coldest in the last 100 years. In recent times, the Decembers of 2001, 1996 and 1995 were all much colder.

There were several individual temperatures of note. On the 10th a maximum of 14.0C was recorded at Tain in Easter Ross to the north of Inverness, while across the Cromarty Firth RAF Kinloss remained above 11.5C throughout the following night. By contrast, the post-Christmas cold spell brought the lowest temperatures of the entire year: during the early hours of the 29th the temperature plunged to minus 12.8C at Aviemore, in Inverness-shire, while the maximum temperature during the subsequent day at Durham was a bone-chilling minus 3.9C – the lowest December temperature anywhere in England for four years.

In spite of heavy rain during the opening and closing days, December 2005 was, overall, a dry month. Averaged over England and Wales the month’s rainfall of 2.72 in was 30 per cent below the long-term average, about the same as last December, and it ranked 21st driest in the last 100 years. In Scotland the month’s rainfall was 25 per cent below normal, and in Northern Ireland 12 per cent below. At a handful of sites along the English Channel coast there was no significant rain for 21 consecutive days between the 8th and 28th inclusive.

December was, like November, an exceptionally sunny month. The aggregate sunshine for England and Wales was 64 hours, almost 40 per cent above the average for the standard reference period 1971-2000. This made it the fourth-sunniest December in 130 years of records – only 1886, 1962, and 2001 were sunnier. Scotland and Northern Ireland were not quite as bright, but there were excesses of around 5 per cent in both areas. The combined total for November and December of 160 hours was higher than any other such pairing since records began.

© Philip Eden