Max (Celsius)

Min (Celsius)

Rainfall (mm)

AIRHEAD

29.8

23.1

Trace

TRAVELLERS

30.7

20.7

Trace

RESIDENCY

26.6

19.1

0.7

GEORGETOWN

31.2

22.4

0.0

ST. HELENA

23.5

17.2

11.4

FALKLANDS

20.5

3.4

20.7

UK (Brize Norton)

2.0

-7.8

5.6

UK

Exceptionally cold with heavy falls of snow across much of the country, with a large area of central southern England recording in excess of 20 cm of fresh snow in midweek. Daytime temperatures remained well below freezing across many areas, with overnight temperatures falling well below Minus 10 degrees Celsius, and to below Minus 20 Celsius across far north of Scotland.

Falklands

Dry, sunny and warm at the start of the week, then cooler and fresher with showers and scattered thunderstorms by mid-week.

Ascension

A few light showers early in the week, but increasingly clear skies with even Green Mountain clear of cloud by end of the week.

St. Helena

Dry with good spells of sunshine in mid-week, otherwise cloudy with occasional showers, these more persistent later in the week.

The current spell of wintry weather follows on from the very wet summer across much of the UK. In contrast, the summer of 1995 was exceptionally dry, warm and sunny, with the dry weather that year extending from late March till late September – even across Ireland. However, the week between Christmas and New Year in 1995 was extremely cold and snowy, with the UK’s all-time lowest temperature of Minus 27.2 degrees Celsius being equalled, and new all-time record low temperatures measured across parts of Ireland.

In August 1995, at the National Trust property of Coney Island on Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland, the water level of the lough dropped so low that the resident warden was unable to make his twice weekly rowing trip to the mainland (due to his rowing boat grounding on the silt). The RAF, then based at nearby Aldergrove came to his rescue. Then during the last week of December, with temperatures as low as Minus 16 degrees Celsius, the shoreline waters of Lough Neagh froze over, again imprisoning the warden on Coney Island, and again the RAF had to come to his rescue.