December 2010 Summary

Temperature [Minimum]:
Night-time temperatures for the month ranged between -3.3 degs C on the night of the 24th/25th to 10.4 degs C on the night of the 28th/29th, giving an average for the month of 2.35 degs C.
The temp of -3.3 on the busiest night of the year for Santa was the coldest ever December night at this location*, and the second lowest of 2010, the coldest night itself being the 27th/28th November [-3.8].
On average, however, December 2010 was the coldest ever month for night-time temps* -
the second coldest being January 2010 at 2.73 degs C.
Minimum temperatures fell below 5 degs C on 21 nights during December 2010, the second most ever* - the most being January 2010 when it did so 23 times.
Furthermore, temps fell below zero on 13 nights, which is the most ever*, and included five consecutive nights from the 20th/21st to the 24th/25th.

Temperature [Maximum]:
Daytime maximum temperatures for December 2010 ranged from 2.3 degs C on the 1st, to 13.7 degs C on the 28th, giving an average of 7.83 degs C for the month.
As with the night-time temps, these were again record-breakingly low. The 1st of the month was the coldest day ever at this location* - the second coldest being January 9th 2010 [2.8]. The average temperature also was the lowest ever at this location*, the second coldest again being January 2010 with 8.33 degs C.
To put some context into this, the average minimum temperature for December 2007 was 7.46 degs C, just 0.37 degs below December 2010's maximum!

Rain/Snow:
The monthly rainfall total for December 2010 was 35.3 mm, making it the driest month [from the sky at least] since May. Long periods of lying snow and ice made it far from dry on the ground!
This figure compares with 183.8 mm in November, and 144.0 mm in December 2009.
The wettest day of December 2010 was the 27th, with 9.1 mm.
There were 18 completely dry days during the month, the most since June. This compares with only 6 in December 2009.
No measurable rain/snow fell from the 6th to the 15th, and the 21st to 26th.


* = Since at least 2003.