The year ended with the coldest month in the UK in relative terms since December 1996. The nationwide daytime temperature was about 0.9°C below average, but it was much colder in Scotland and northern England than in the south. Indeed, the southern third of England enjoyed temperatures above average. The mildest day in December was the 6^th (nationwide average of 11.7°C) and the coldest day was the 20^th (1.3°C). This latter was the coldest day of 1999 and the coldest in the UK since January 1997. Despite this cold month, 1999 recorded the warmest year in the long 340-year Central England Temperature, beating the 1990 record by just 1/100^th of a degree Celsius. Other recent warm years have been 1989, 1995 and 1997.

After a dry October and November, December was an extremely wet month in the UK. Rainfall totals were above average across nearly the whole country, with some locations recording more than twice their usual December rainfall. The wettest spell was the run-in to Christmas and Christmas Day itself was the wettest day of 1999 with a nationwide average of over 16mm rainfall. Both 1998 and 1999 have been very wet years in the UK with rainfall totalling more than 15 per cent above average.

One of the sunniest December's recorded in the UK, despite the high rainfall. Nearly the whole country recorded more than its usual December sunshine and some east coast locations recorded almost twice their average. Lerwick, however, and the Shetland Islands recorded on average less than 30 minutes of sunshine each day. Only three of the last 17 months have been cloudier than average in the UK (see Graph).

Dr Mike Hulme is a Research Climatologist at the University of East Anglia

(more details at web site: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~mikeh/)

Daytime Temperature: 0.9°C below average; Rainfall: 58% above average; Sunshine: 35% above average.

[all average figures are based on the 1951-80 average]

Mean monthly extremes:

Warmest Guernsey 10.9°C

Sunniest Folkestone 99 hours sun

Wettest Eskdalemuir 268mm

Coldest Eskdalemuir 3.7°C

Cloudiest Lerwick 13 hours sun

Driest Skegness 59mm