Potten End Newsletter Article 8

This article originally appeared in the Potten End Newsletter, January/February 2013.

Potten End Weather

Teacher: “What is a blizzard?”
Stanley: “A blizzard?! … A blizzard is the inside of a buzzard”.
– from the Laurel and Hardy film “Pardon Us”, 1931

A Review of 2012’s Weather

2012 was certainly a year to remember. Apart from the phenomenal Olympic Games when the weather really excelled itself along side our athletes, it felt like most of the year was more like the washout that accompanied the Diamond Jubilee weekend.

The Met Office say that 2012 was the second wettest in the UK on record (the wettest was 2000 by 6.6mm). In Potten End however, it was by far the wettest year on our records (though admittedly 2006 is our earliest complete year of data). I’m pretty sure we’re not going to see a hosepipe ban this year!

Potten End Rain Totals and Wettest Months

Temperatures

Last year may not have had record hot temperatures, but it made up for it with the coldest day on our records which was 11th February 2012 with a temperature of -9.5ºC.

The hottest temperature we have on record is 35.2ºC on 19th and 25th of July. The hottest in 2012 was 31.4ºC on 19th August

Wind

Another record breaker last year was the highest recorded windspeed. On 15th June a gust of 21.9mph was recorded. 2012 was also the windiest year we have on record with 8 days where wind speed was 15mph or more

Winter and Spring

Past performance is no guarantee, but from our records we note that: February and March have about 9 or 10 days of rain on average; The minimum average temperature in February and March is around 2ºC with maximum averages of around 8ºC for February and 11ºC for March.