2011 - Second Warmest Year For UK

According to the Met Office, 2011 was the second warmest year for UK.


2006, the warmest year for UK had an average temperature of 9.73C, with 2011 only second to it with an average temperature of 9.62C.


The BBC reports:
"The mean temperature for the first 28 days of December was 4.7C (40.5F); a big swing from 2010, says the Met Office, when temperatures were 5C below average for the coldest December on record.

The BBC weather centre is predicting another "very mild" day for New Year's Eve with highs of 13C (55F). Forecasters say it will be mostly cloudy and windy, with perhaps a few brighter spells in the north and east of the UK and the odd outbreak of mainly light rain or drizzle.

John Prior, national climate manager at the Met Office, said: "While it may have felt mild for many so far this December, temperatures overall have been close to what we would expect.

"It may be that the stark change from last year, which was the coldest December on record for the UK, has led many to think it has been unseasonably warm."

All bar one of the top 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 1997 and all the UK's top seven warmest years happened in the past decade.

The warmest temperature recorded this year was 33.1C (91.5F) on Monday 27 June at Gravesend in Kent. The Met Office said it was the warmest temperature recorded in the UK for five years.

Apart from January, the other months that had below-average temperatures were June, July and August.

Gravesend was also the location for the warmest October temperature ever, when 29.9C (85.8F) was recorded on 1 October, beating the previous record of 29.4C (84.9F) in the Cambridgeshire town of March on the same day in 1985.

The coldest temperature was -13C (8.6F) at Altnaharra in the Scottish Highlands on 8 January, while the strongest gust of wind was 165mph (265.5kph), recorded at the highest point of the Cairngorms mountain range on 8 December."