Beyond dire with a low of just -2.3C and above freezing both first thing and at times during the night. Beyond surreal how awful the minima have been. Never known a spell so poor in the heart of winter where it struggles to go below freezing at night with clear skies and reasonably deep snow cover.  [color=var(--bs-body-color)][font=system-ui, -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", "Noto Sans", "Liberation Sans", Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol", "Noto Color Emoji"]Even Aboyne only managed -10C which is pathetic by their usual standards. [/font][/color]

Also failed to record a single ice day compared to two last January. Even the exceptionally mild December had one despite no snow. It's just been stuck in the same narrow range of 0-2C every day.

Extremely underwhelming and unmemorable.

Yes the “flop” of a cold spell currently has Aberdeen (Dyce) at a mean for the month of -0.9°C and my own at -0.1°C, given my city location and proximity to the sea (about 1.5 miles), that is very impressive.

Friday and Saturday here - half a mile from the sea - had a 1-minute mean of -1.1, and today's so far is -1.4 (albeit that will rise as it will be above freezing for a while yet). That's still pretty impressive, and is evidenced by the rock-solid ground... it's a pleasure to not sink into the lawn as I walk across it.

The monthly mean (measured the traditional way) is 3.0, and that's also pretty impressive - the 91-20 mean is 5.1, so a good 2C below that. It's almost 1C below the old 61-90 mean, too, so by any measurement it's been cold!

I would go as far as to say that for your area it sounds like a very good spell indeed!

Unlike here, though, you're going to have quite an abrupt end to it all. Down here it's the opposite - a gradual warming back to the 61-90 mean, rather than the more typical values. The Met Office has a run of highs of 6 or 7, with one 8, for the next week, with lows between zero and 2C - cold enough for a touch of ground frost, if not air frost.

It's all very refreshing, frankly... the benign side of winter, rather than the rain and fury side!

Also Altnaharra went down to -18.5C on the morning of the 11th after 9am which should count as the minimum for the 12th.

They're taken from the MetO page here:

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/observations/weather-extremes 

and it says:

Highest maximum temperature - 09:00 to 21:00 on the date shown.

Lowest maximum temperature - 09:00 to 21:00 on the date shown.

Lowest minimum temperature - 21:00 on the previous day to 09:00 on the date shown.

I guess they do it that way to avoid things like that -18.5 in effect counting twice.

About this extremes data

All times are in UTC.

Highest maximum temperature - 09:00 to 21:00 on the date shown.

Lowest maximum temperature - 09:00 to 21:00 on the date shown.

Lowest minimum temperature - 21:00 on the previous day to 09:00 on the date shown.

It’s not the way that climate records are done though. 

It's the way these records are done! 😁 TBH it makes far more sense for the lay person too, if you have an exceptional cold night you only count it once rather than twice.

And talking of which, today's update... the exceptional cold has well and truly gone.