Thursday night into Friday morning was forecast to be the coldest night of the year but it didn’t get all that cold as the temperature fell to -1.9°C or 28.6°F. The coldest night of the year is still -3.2°C (26.2°F) on 11 December 2017. We’ve had some snow too, in fact it’s snowing as I write this post (10:00 Friday) morning but so far it hasn’t amounted to all that much just a light covering.
10:10 Friday morning - light snow falling
First job this morning was to feed the birds. They had obviously been up early in search of food as their footprints were highlighted in the snow.
Our bird bath was iced over and covered with snow but it looked like someone had been trying to get a drink.
A kettle full of hot water soon had the ice and snow melted.
We’ll now have to wait and see how much snow falls by lunchtime by which time the weather should begin to brighten up a bit.
The mild few days were forecast to end by Boxing Day, as a band of rain passed through, has turned out to be correct.
Temperature Records 21-27 December 2017
As the rain arrived the temperature dropped. Rain early on Boxing day morning was on the sleety side. The forecast is for any rain to fall as snow from early on Wednesday morning through to Wednesday lunchtime.
So far (Wednesday Morning 09:00) it appears that the snow has fallen further south once again. Here it's remained mostly dry with just a short shower falling as rain.
We'd picked some sprouts for Christmas dinner on our last visit to the plot. We had a little test of them before Christmas and they were a little disappointing. The flavour was fine but there was a large amount of waste on each sprout due to some sort of strange black substance around the base of each one.
For the last few days the weather's been on the mild side for late December. The temperature hasn't varied much through the night with night time temperatures higher than we were getting in the daytime at the beginning of the week.
Temperature & Rainfall Records 18-24 December 2017
We visited the plot on Friday afternoon to harvest a few vegetables for Christmas dinner. What we didn't expect to find were any edible ripe tomatoes.
22 December 2017 - Tomatoes - "Shirley"
22 December 2017 - Tomatoes - "Golden Crown"
It was a real surprise that the tomatoes hadn't gone soft as the temperature in the greenhouse must have been below freezing. It's certainly a first for us to have home grown tomatoes for Christmas. I'm not too sure how the tomatoes even came to be left on the dead remains of last summer's tomato plants. We haven't had many visits to the plot due to the recent cold weather and I can only assume that the last time we considered picking any tomatoes these ones were still unripe and were left. We tested some of the Golden Crown in a sandwich and they were delicious.
The milder weather has arrived although it hasn't brought much sunshine with it. However, even though it was dull and rather damp we set off on Wednesday morning to photograph the last of this year's steam hauled trains bound for York. I don't think there's another York bound steam hauled charter train until the beginning of March next year.
LNER A4 Class 4-6-2 no 60009 Union of South Africa at Colton Junction with the Christmas White Rose
In the afternoon we thought we'd make the most of the mild weather and have a trip down to the plot to harvest a few fresh vegetables. It all looks a bit desolate now but we did manage to find a few things to harvest.
We made the decision to harvest the biggest of our red cabbages. It's a bit of a monster tipping the scales at 5.2kg.
Cabbage - Red Lodero
Whilst I'm on the subject of monster vegetables one of the parsnips we dug up on Wednesday afternoon also fell into the same category.
Parsnip - Gladiator
We've two generations of parsnips growing. A few are from our first sowing of the year but most are from a later sowing made when the first batch either didn't germinate or got eaten by slugs and snails. My money is on the latter. Anyway, I think the one I dug up on Wednesday afternoon came from the first sowing. I didn't manage to get deep enough to get out the full length of the parsnip but there's plenty of edible root in the part I did manage to get out of the ground.
Thursday was the winter solstice so our hours of daylight each day should be increasing. Thursday was a really dull and drizzly sort of a day in perfect keeping with the short daylight hours. It didn't make much effort to get light all day. It's nice to know that our daylight is getting longer each day now as winter progresses. However, January and February are usually our worst winter months.
I've added a little bit of video below showing our harvesting antics on the plot on Wednesday afternoon.
According to the weather models our cold spell of weather should be coming to an end today with a milder spell taking over and leading us up to Christmas.
It was a cold start to Monday morning with the overnight temperature once again falling below zero. However, despite a few frosty nights and bitterly cold days I don't think it's been anything too unusual for December.
Temperature Records for 17 November - 17 December 2017
There's often one Saturday in December when two steam train charters head to York and last Saturday that turned out to be the case again this year. On a cold but sunny Saturday morning we set off to see what we could manage to photograph.
GWR Castle Class 4-6-0 no 5043 Earl of Mount Edgcumbe with The Christmas White Rose
First came 5043 Earl of Mount Edgcumbe with a charter train from Tyseley Warwick Road to York. It was running about 15 minutes early at Colton Junction where our photographs and video were taken so it was just as well we'd arrived in good time. It meant we had around an hour to wait until the York Yuletide Express was due.
LMS Royal Scot Class 7P 4-6-0 no 46100 Royal Scot with The York Yuletide Express
Now we're waiting for the milder weather to arrive. We'll have to make a trip to the allotment to pick some fresh vegetables and test our sprouts.
The first spell of cold winter weather has passed, although technically winter won’t arrive until 21 December, now it’s turned a little bit milder. After a couple of weeks of December the milder days have lost out to the colder days and as a result our average temperature is currently 4.6°C (40.3°F) a bit below our December average which stands at 5.7°C or 42.3°F.
Monthly Temperature Records for December 2017
Our watercress has survived the cold weather of the last few days. I have to admit that when I took these two photos on Monday morning when the temperature was around -3.0°C (27°F) I didn’t hold out much chance of us having any more sprigs in our lunchtime sandwiches.
11 December 2017
11 December 2017
It wasn’t an awful lot warmer on Thursday morning but at least it was above freezing if only by a couple of degrees. However, much to my surprise our watercress had made a remarkable recovery.
14 December 2017
I might even have to venture out at lunchtime to pick a few sprigs to go with our lunchtime egg sandwiches. I wonder if the freezing temperatures will have affected the flavour?
Well, we didn’t get any snow on Sunday. I have to admit that by Saturday morning the weather models had adjusted their predictions of where snow was to fall on Sunday and we were unlikely to get either snow or rain. That turned out to be the case. We did manage a few flakes on Sunday afternoon but it would be pushing it a bit to describe it as a snowfall.
However, Sunday night through into Monday morning produced the coldest temperature of the year so far as the thermometer plunged to -3.2°C or 26.2°F.
It's the coldest temperature since 29 December 2016 when the temperature fell to -5.6°C or 21.9°F.
Temperature & Rainfall Records 09-11 December 2017
Last week we didn’t visit our allotment and instead had a couple of afternoons photographing steam locomotives. It’s the time of year when special charter trains head for York. First, on Thursday afternoon, was “The Christmas White Rose” heading to York from Norwich. It was running about two hours late by the time we arrived at our chosen photographic location. We decided to get some lunch in York rather than hang around in the bitterly cold weather. After lunch we returned to our spot in time to see 60009 Union of South Africa speed by on its way to York.
On Saturday lunchtime it was the turn of 5043 Earl of Mount Edgcumbe with “The York Yuletide Express” from London Ealing Broadway to York.
Luckily for us, this train was running only about 15 minutes late so we didn’t have to wait around in the freezing conditions for too long.
As forecast the colder weather has arrived as you can see from the temperature chart. The wind chill effect makes it feel even colder.
Temperature, Wind Chill & Rainfall Records 06-08 December 2017
That spell of rain that shows up on the chart around midnight on Thursday fell as snow but by morning there was almost no trace of it left.
I got the impression that it wasn't very warm in our greenhouse this morning as last nights snow had turned into a covering of ice. Hopefully some sunshine will soon thaw it out and warm up the greenhouse a little bit.
The forecast is for snow showers on Saturday and for a more prolonged period of snowfall on Sunday.
We're under that central grey area of predicted snowfall for Sunday morning. That grey area doesn't move much at all through Sunday so we may get a moderate snowfall. The temperature is forecast to be around freezing point all day so the snow might hang around a bit.
This blog records the local weather details near to my allotment plot in Wakefield. The details are gathered from a weather station which I set up in my garden during October 2009. Click here to read about set up.
Records of temperature, rainfall and wind speeds will be posted as recorded. A summary is posted each month on our website click here to view.
Click any chart image to view at 100%. Click on the magnifying glass to magnify and use the mouse to move the image.
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60103 Flying Scotsman with The Yorkshireman
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It's a long time since we've been out capturing any steam on the main line
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