Bitterly cold Christmas.. but will December be a record breaker?

Christmas day dawned overcast and cold with a temperature of -4.7 achieved in the small hours. A white Christmas of sorts as the low overnight minima has helped preserve the slowly thawing snow cover, picture post-card? no but better than mild and wet.
So on to Boxing day and yet again a hard overnight frost of -7.4 has left a thin cover of ice over the fish pond, the first time its ever frozen over but this is due to the pump being turned off as the filters are still frozen from the -13.1 last week!
The mean temp for Hawley for December is currently -0.4, a sub zero month would be a record but with milder winds set to extend east across the UK this is under threat, unfortunately.

Pond after a -13.1 night!

So a potentially messy breakdown is on the cards, into January and its difficult to predict what will happen with the weather, this winter so far has been exceptionally cold and has generally fought off any mild incursions from the West, this can't last of course but with three potentially very cold months before the spring anything is possible.
I mentioned some weeks ago that 'the beast from the east' wants to come and party at new year, well he may be a week late but I'm confident that another cold spell is going to hit us by the second week of Jan.

Boxing day Ice cover

Keep those snow shovels handy...