12 snowless months

The Christmas lights are packed away for another year, the tree has been unceremoniously butchered and discarded at the refuse tip and the zonal, boring weather that characterised much of 2011 has continued into 2012, the London Olympics and Diamond Jubilee year.

Apple inspects two fallen trees

I'm reasonably pleased with my LRF that predicted a much milder December than 2010 but I, like others are surprised at just how mild it has been, I read somewhere that its been the second warmest December on record!

If you're a cold and snow fan you can't fail to be disappointed with what the first month of winter has delivered but my view is that we have been spoilt by the last two winters and the weather we have had in December is pretty much what we normally have, wind, rain and very little snow.

So into January and the theme continues, the unusually windy conditions I predicted for the second week came yesterday with severe gales and damaging gusts bringing widespread damage and disruption with two people losing their lives due to trees being uprooted, more is expected later today but will not be as severe as yesterday.

I stated in my LRF that a change to much colder conditions will happen around mid-month and it does now look like the pattern that has given us this mild weather could be about to change around that time, so a change is likely that could bring drier and colder conditions but that means frosts as opposed to snow I'm afraid.

Chin up though snow-lovers, February is the month I predicted to be the coldest so lets wait and see.