The mildest winter on record (6.5C CET). An excellent May. A very sunny year overall. May to August averaged over 9 hours sunshine a day, beating even 1959 and 1976. This was the year of the Halifax storm.

January. Extremely mild (6.1C CET): Scotland and Glasgow had its mildest January of the century, as did Northern Ireland. It was generally very dry, except for western Scotland, which was very wet. Glen Shiel recorded 855 mm, while Aberdeenshire only had 10% of the monthly average rainfall. Torrisdale, in the extreme north of Scotland, reached 15.5C on the 27th.

February. Extremely mild, generally wet, with some exceptional gales in the north. 300mm of rain in northwest Scotland, with flooding in Inverness. Heavy rainfall on the 5th and 6th led to flooding in the Highlands; the 127 year old rail bridge over the Ness at Inverness was swept away. A record low-level gust of wind of 142 mph was set at Fraserburgh (Kinnaird Lighthouse) during a storm on the 13th. On the 25th a depression with a maximum depth of 948 mbar crossed the south cost of England. The pressure reading of 952 mbar in London was the lowest since Christmas Day 1821.

March. Warm spell at the end: London recorded 19.9 on the 31st. Elmstone (Canterbury) recorded 20.7C on the 28th. A warm, sunny early Easter.

April. Cold. There was a heavy snowfall in the London area on the 5th, with 18 cms of snow at Tadworth (Surrey). There were damaging gales in the SW on April 11th, with a gust of nearly 100 mph recorded at Milford Haven, when the pressure was exceptionally low for April

May. Very dry, very sunny, and very warm (13.0C CET). Over 300 hours of sunshine was widely recorded for the first time since 1909. There was no rain at all in some parts of London, yet 83 mm fell in two hours in a multi-cellular thunderstorm in Halifax on the 19th; and approximately 193.2 mm at Walshaw Den Lodge near Hebden Bridge, in 2 hours. This is the record daily rainfall for May, and the most intense 2 hour rainfall recorded in Britain. It is known as the "Halifax Storm". It was associated with high pressure but air being forced up the Pennines asociated with an old cold front. It was hot to the south of the front, and cool to the north (-2C that morning in NE Scotland). A SE breeze pushed hot air into the frontal zone and up the mountains The downpour started about 4pm. Obviously the flash-flooding led to damage, carrying trees and destroying small footbridges. Less than five kilometres away only 7 mm of rain fell. There was a notable dust devil at Hurst Green (Surrey) on the 9th. It reached 27C on Skye on the 21st. It was very hot on the 23rd, with 29.4C being reached at Heathrow, and then there were some severe thunderstorms in the Midlands on the 24th, with 29.9C reported at March (Cambridgeshire). It was on average the driest May of the century over England and Wales..

June. This month had a very warm spell in the middle of the month, but was cold at the beginning and end. The minimum was 1.5C on the 3rd at Hurn airport (Bournemouth). It was 27C at Aviemore on the 18th, and 30.5 in Leeds on the 20th. Halesowen had the warmest June day since 1976 (29.7 on the 20th) and the coldest night since 1962 (0.1 on the 2nd). It was the sunniest since 1976. The "snow" reported at Gillingham and Chatham in North Kent on the 6th was nothing more than a heavy hailstorm, with laying hail.

July. Very warm (18.2), dry, and sunny. Anticyclonic. The high of 34.2 at Heathrow on the 22nd was the highest temperature since 1976 (although of course even better was to come in 1990). The mean maximum at Edinburgh airport (21.7) was the highest since records began in 1948.

August. Warm, sunny, and dry, except for west Scotland (434 mm in Rhum). The third sunniest this century so far (after 1976 and 1947). On the 14th a small tornado damaged a caravan camp at Pwllheli. 30.4C at Coltishall (Norfolk) on the 20th.

September. Very dry, particularly in the north, and warm in places (e.g. East Anglia and the SE, where it was the warmest since 1961). Largely anticyclonic, but unsettled midmonth, with thunderstorms. A severe thunderstorm on the 10th gave 31 mm of rain in 30 minutes in the Dover area. 27C widespread on the 7th, and 27.2C at Jersey on the 21st.

October. Warm, very unsettled at the end of the month. A very warm start to the month: 22.3C at Herne Bay (Kent) on the 6th. 97.3 mm of rain fell in two days (15-16th) at Fort William midmonth. Gusts of 100 mph at Portland Bill and 98 mph at Herstmonceux (Sussex) as a gale swept across Britain on the 28th. The warmest in the Midlands since 1969.

November. Cool, sunny, and dry. Fog and severe frosts at the end of the month, following a change to very anticyclonic weather on the 11th. Nevertheless, the sunniest November on record for much of southern England. Folkestone made 147 hours, the national record.

December. A varied month, but generally unsettled. Cool over the north, mild in the south. Largely dull apart from the far north. Broom's Barn (Suffolk) recorded only 25 hours of sunshine. There was a cold spell in the north midmonth; most of central Scotland stayed beneath freezing from the 12-15th, and on the 14th, the temperature at Tummel Bridge rose to a maximum of only -6.6C, from a minimum of -13. It was wet spell just before Christmas, with over 100 mm of rain in places. A tornado hit the villages of East and West Stour (Dorset) on the 21st, causing damage and uprooting trees. Thunder recorded on Christmas Day.