New Year's Day was mild and dry with sunny intervals. In fact it was the mildest day of the month with 50F recorded. The 2nd was dull and rainy but fairly mild. The 4th was overcast and dry but the 5th, 6th and 8th were all dry and sunny.

An anti-cyclone had formed north-west off Scotland and it drifted southwards bringing dry and settled weather over all of the UK for the next 10 days. Night-frosts occurred on most nights from the 10th to the 22nd. Indeed temperatures were as low as 25F on the 17th, equal to the lowest temperature of 2000, but there were some sunny days, notably on the 13th when 7.3 hours of sunshine was recorded.

There was fog on the mornings of the 14th and the 15th and dense fog on the morning of the 16th. Snow flurries fell on the morning of the 19th but no rain fell at all between the 9th and 18th January.

The anticyclone retreated eastwards on the 20th and snow fell on the 21st. This didn't last as heavy rain on the 22nd and 23rd got rid of it and brought milder weather. There was another strong anti-cyclone that brought sunny and dry weather from the 25th to the 29th which was the sunniest day of the month with 7.5 hours of sunshine recorded. The month closed in quiet, dull weather and fog returned, as it was recorded on the evening of the 31st.

January 2001 was an extremely sunny month and was the fourth consecutive January that was sunnier than average. It was not however, as sunny as January 2000. It was not as mild as January 2000 either becoming the coldest January since 1997 and the first January to record a below average temperature since then. Despite this, it wasn't an exceptionally cold month. It was also a calm month with hardly any strong winds recorded.

Kevin Phillips - 8.35pm - Wednesday 7th February 2001.