February - Slightly wetter than average but also very sunny. Also a mild month.
March - A mild, dry and sunny month.
April - Extremely wet (More than twice the usual amount of rainfall). The wettest April recorded in over 100 years. Average sunshine and temperature.
May - Average rainfall. Very dry first half. Unsettled second half. A sunny month and quite warm overall though there was a cool spell in the second half of the month.
June - Slightly drier than average. Cool spells mingled in with warm days. Hot and sunny spell from the 16th to the 19th, with the hottest day in 10 years on 18th June. Slightly duller than average.
July - Second successive dry July but also dull and cool. The dullest and coolest July since 1988 but there was a sunny spell between July 16th and July 21st.
August - A warm and sunny month with below average rainfall but there were two thunderstorms, on August 21st and August 26th.
September - Dry first half. Strong winds on the 6th. Exceptionally wet from the 15th on. A dull and warm month. The dullest September since 1994 and the wettest September since 1993
October - Very wet with over twice the amount of rainfall but not quite as wet as October 1998. There was a quiet spell between the 15th and the 24th. No outstandingly high or low temperatures anywhere. Snow was recorded on 30th October between 9-10am in a severe storm but didn't stick. That morning was very wet and stormy with low pressure. A gust of 80mph was recorded. It was the worst storm recorded since the 25th January 1990.
November - The wettest November since 1970. It was marginally wetter than October and the wettest month of 2000. Temperatures were marginally below average with sunshine also marginally below.
December - Very wet. The first half was the mildest first half of a December recorded since 1979. The second half was cold, particularly during the final few days. Sunshine was around average.
The year 2000 was the wettest calendar year since 1872.
The lowest Temperature (Day-time) was 32F on 28th December.
The Highest Night-time Minima was 63F on 19th June and 13th August.
The lowest Night-time minima was 25F on 29th December.
The sunniest day of 2000 was 19th June when 15.3 hours of sunshine was recorded.
The sunniest spell was between June 12th and June 19th with an average of 12 hours sunshine a day. The second sunniest spell was between May 11th and May 16th which gave an average of 10.8 hours a day.
The cloudiest spell in 2000 was between June 29th and July 6th. In those seven days no sunshine was recorded. No sunshine was recorded between December 18th and December 24th. There was no sunshine recorded between November 5th and November 9th.
Only 5.7 hours of sunshine was recorded between March 2nd and March 9th. The longest consecutive dull was between November 11th and November 14th when no sunshine at all was recorded.
November 7th was the wettest day of 2000 with 1.34 inches of rain (34 millimetres). October 30th was the second wettest with 1.28 inches or 32.5 millimetres. April 3rd was the 3rd wettest with 1.11 inches of rain or 28.2 millimetres. October 7th was the fourth wettest with 1.02 inches or 25.9 millimetres.
The driest months of 2000 were July, then January and March.
No rain fell at all between July 11th and July 28th, a spell of 17 days, which was the driest spell of the entire year.
There was no rain between May 4th and May 16th, a spell of 12 days.
No rain fell between June 10th and June 20th, a spell of 10 days.
Snow fell on January 14th but didn't settle. It snowed on the morning of February 16th. Sleet fell all day on April 3rd. Snow fell on the morning of October 30th but didn't settle. There was more snow on December 25th in showers, December 26th in showers, December 28th and December 31st, in a year where amounts of snowfall were generally low.
The worst storm of the year was on October 30th, as stated earlier. The average wind speed was 60mph. The second and third worst were on January 29th and on the evening of January 30th. Gusts blew up to 80mph on the 29th with a mean wind speed of 50mph. On the evening of the 30th January, gusts blew up to 70mph between 7pm and 9pm.
The fourth worst was a storm on February 7th. That evening, up to 8.30pm, the mean wind speed was 45 mph.
Thunder was heard on May 27th. Thunderstorms were recorded on June 4th, August 21st, August 26th and September 20th.
Fog was recorded on September 11th, September 19th, November 21st, December 18th and December 23rd.
The highest air pressure of 2000 was 1042MB on 16th January. 1041MB was measured on 18th March. 1036MB was measured on the 7th April and 1033MB on the 20th February.
The lowest Air Pressure was 962MB on the 30th October. 977MB was recorded on the 6th November and 981MB on 8th December. 987MB was recorded on 12th April.
Sunshine totals for 2000 were 1543.1 hours, a decrease of 220.8 hours from those of 1999. They were almost exactly the same as the sunshine totals for 1998.
Rainfall for 2000 was 1016.2 millimetres.
Kevin Phillips - 12.20pm - Sunday 7th January 2001.
