Electricity North West weather watch – January

Thankfully the power network in our region was not badly impacted by the severe wind and rain, but we have been busy keeping you updated and informed online and on the phone 24 hours a day. 

Don’t forget we are available online, on Twitter and Facebook and during severe weather our job is not done until power is restored to the last customer.

Now let’s find out if we have seen the last of the bad weather with MeteoGroup senior meteorologists, Matthew Dobson and Nick Prebble.

Look back: December 2017 and start of January 2018

The first month of the meteorological winter was slightly milder than normal, with below average rainfall and above average sunshine amounts. Temperatures over the North West ranged from a high of 11.9C (recorded on both the 6^th and 25^th December), to a low of -10.4C on the night of the 10^th/11^th December.

The first week of the month also saw the Met Office name a deep low pressure area as Storm Caroline, but associated severe gales mostly affected Scotland with gusts greater than 60mph only occurring over mountainous parts of the North West during this event. However, it was very wet on the night of the 6^th December with 42mm recorded at Shap in Cumbria.

The second week of December saw cold conditions on several days, with temperatures struggling to lift above freezing on occasion during daylight hours, especially in the High Pennines. There were some snow showers too, but the North West region largely avoided the widespread and disruptive snowfall that fell over Wales and the Midlands between Friday 8^th and Sunday 10^th December.  It became milder before Christmas, with winds from the South West, but with a lack of severe weather.

From Christmas Eve to New Year, deeper low pressure areas from the Atlantic became a frequent visitor to the UK’s shores.  It was very wet on the night of Christmas Eve and through Christmas Day. The influence of low pressure also brought period of snow across the North West (especially Cumbria) on Friday 29th, with very icy conditions by night as skies cleared.  The arrival of Storm Dylan on 31^st December heralded an unsettled end to the year as another bout of wet and windy weather swept across the UK.

And even with the change in the year, the spell of wet and windy weather was unrelenting, with rapidly developing Storm Eleanor crossing southern Scotland on the night of January 2^nd into 3^rd. This feature resulted in several hours of gale/severe gale force winds, with 55-65mph gusts occurring widely over the region and close to 100mph gusts over the High Pennines.

Look ahead: Rest of January 2018

As we head into the weekend of 6^th and 7^th January a change is on the way, as the conveyor belt of deep low pressure areas from over the Atlantic finally eases, allowing higher pressure to build close to the UK.  This will bring some calmer and colder conditions, with some frost this weekend.

With high pressure building over Scandinavia during next week and with winds from an easterly direction, this pattern can sometimes bring the UK some very cold weather during mid-winter. However, so far this winter it has been extremely mild over Western Russia and Eastern Europe compared with normal, so we don’t have any extremely cold air to our east to tap into.

By the end of next week and through to mid-January, it seems likely we will see a return to south-westerly winds and milder conditions again, with Atlantic low pressure ushering in some wet and windy conditions at times. Other than short-lived colder and drier interludes, the rest of January is looking on the mild side. The recent potent wind storms were fuelled by very cold weather over the USA and Canada, which super-charged the jet stream. The cold weather over the USA should become less intense by mid-January and so the threat of deep winter storms passing overhead England and Wales reduces.

In the event of an unexpected power cut you can contact Electricity North West 24/7 on the new free national number 105 or call 0800 195 4141 or let us know on Twitter  or Facebook.

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