February 2019 ended with the warmest days on record in the month. As a result, the month as a whole was the second warmest and second sunniest February on record.
The meteorological year starts in December which is why December appears as the 1st data point in the charts below. More information on the layout of the charts can be found in this post. Points lying between the upper and lower deciles are shown as open black circles, points lying between the deciles and minimum/maximum are shown as solid black circles and any month with a new record is shown as solid black squares.
As I explained in October, the addition of a Temperature Range chart (B) means I now have 7 charts to I update every month so I will rotate which 6 appear in the deck above 
and plot the 7th as a separate chart. I stated that Sunshine is of least interest in the winter months which means chart C above is now for Frost and the odd one out is Sunshine in chart G here.
Saying that though, February 2019 turned out to be the 2nd sunniest on record. More notably, the temperature range was the largest on record. This is probably a consequence of sunny days which meant that whilst the temperature maximums set new records, temperature minimums were still quite cool hence the new record for the temperature. At the same time, this dragged down the average 24 hour temperature for the month.
Regional Variations
February marks the end of the meteorological winter. I do not track regional statistics every month but I do track temperature by season for each region so I can update the regional temperature chart below. This shows the Z-Score for each region for the 2019 winter. A Z-Score is simply the regional temperature minus the long term average for that region divided by the long term standard deviation for that region. Doing this, gets around the issue that each region is different on average whereas z-scores all have the same scale, namely number of standard deviations from the mean.
For the UK as a whole, winter 2018 was well above average in temperature and this was the case in all regions. This was especially the case in Northern Ireland which experienced its 2nd warmest winter on record. It is also notable that the western side of England and Wales was warmer than the rest of the UK.
PS: If you bookmark this link, it will be refreshed with the latest month’s data. I usually post the update in the first week of each month.
Click the relevant month to see my other weather trackers. Alternatively click the Weather Tracker hash tag below this post to see a list of all such posts.
- Click here for the latest month.
- 2019 – January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
- 2018 – January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
- 2017 – January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
For analysis of trends by seasons, please click on the relevant season from this list or the Weather Trends hashtag below this post.
- 2019 – Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn
- 2018 – Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn
- 2017 – Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn
