Off to a mild start

The new year got off to a mild start with the weather continuing as the previous few weeks.

I noticed that the BBC and Met Office are recording 2011 as the second hottest ever UK year. As a gardener that surprised me somewhat as I can’t remember any crops struggling due to the heat. Our crops struggled more through lack of rain and cold temperatures throughout the main summer months than from a prolonged heatwave. Crops like sweetcorn failed to produce completely which I put down to a cold and dry summer.

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Looking back over the year April was clearly the standout month with above average temperatures but that’s a little too early for most of the main vegetable crops to benefit, especially as we had a keen frost at the beginning of May which undid much of April’s good work.

Our early potatoes and outdoor grapes were frosted along with our Kiwi. The grapes and Kiwi never fully recovered from their set back so we can only hope for better luck with the weather this year.

Frosted Kiwi 4th May 2011

The other surprising thing I noticed was the value of the average annual UK temperature. The article above gives a little graph of the monthly temperatures and gives the annual average UK temperature as 9.62°C.

The average temperature recorded by my weather station for Ossett last year is 11.0°C which is positively tropical compared to the UK average quoted. I’m wondering where you have to live in the UK to experience this average temperature. Ossett is situated in the north of England so I’m thinking possibly Scotland say Edinburgh might be the place to experience something like this temperature. My weather station temperatures are usually in close agreement with other Weather Stations that display their data on the Internet via Weather Underground so I’ve no reason to believe my recordings are so far out.  

It would be interesting to find out what the average temperatures are in the areas that my readers live in. It would be great if you could pop a comment here if you know what the average annual temperature is in your area.