Given below, are the final January statistics for Edinburgh, Gogarbank from all of the data which I have available which are:

Temperature (°C):

Lowest Min: -6.7 (on 31/1)
Highest Min: 8.4 (on 15/1)
Mean Min: 1.2
Min. Anomaly: +0.1

Lowest Max: 1.0 (on 31/1)
Highest Max: 11.6 (on 7/1)
Mean Max: 6.4
Max. Anomaly: -0.2

Ave. Temp.: 3.8
Temp. Anomaly: 0.0

Air Frosts: 13 (113.0% of 1981-2010 average)
Ice Days: 0

Rainfall (mm):

Total for Month: 10.2 (13.4% of 1981/2010 average)
Wettest Day: 3.4 (on 29/1)
Rain Days: 4 (29.4% of 1981/2010 average)
Dry Days: 20
Longest Dry Spell: 5 days (1/1 to 5/1)
Highest Number of Days without a single dry day: 2 days (6/1 to 7/1, 22/1 to 23/1 and 25/1 to 26/1)

Sunshine Totals (hrs):

Total For Month: 65.1 (143.1% of 1981-2010 average)
Sunniest Day: 7.2 (on 31/1)
Sunless Days: 9

Conclusion:

Overall, January was a month of two halves. For the first half of the month, it was very mild as the pattern continued in the same vein as what we saw throughout December. It is thought that this is probably due to the Atlantic SSTs favouring a positive NAO and a strong Azores High, along with the rather quick switch from the last easterly QBO phase to a westerly QBO. It is thought that some of the effects of the SSW event which occurred last Christmas might have been dampened down a bit by those other factors, resulting in the effects from that not being as severe in terms of cold weather in this part of the world as what they might otherwise have been.

If that is true, then that helps to explain why there has been no repeat of last year's Beast from the East events this time. However, it would appear that the SSW event may well have given the atmosphere just enough of a jolt to push us into a colder pattern of weather. The result of this is that the second half of January was much colder than the first half. For here, this was enough to cancel out those earlier milder than average temperature anomalies, thus resulting the temperatures being bang on average overall.

This has however, been a very poor month for snow and had it not been for that snow shower or cluster of snow showers which fell during the early hours of Wednesday morning, January would have gone down as another completely snowless month here to add to the one which we had in December. However, a large part of that is due to the fact that there has just been very little precipitation around which could potentially fall as snow. January was an exceptionally dry month and for Edinburgh Gogarbank (the station which is there, has only really been in existence since the mid-2000s (although I may well be wrong about that) as far as I know), it was probably almost certainly, the driest January on record.

In addition to that, it was also a sunnier than average overall. Sunnier skies during the day are more likely to mean that the skies will be clear at night and this may well be enough to expain why the number of official air frosts during January were slightly more than average, although the vast majority of those occurred during that much colder second half of the month.

 

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Near average, decidedly on the dry side though.

Average temperature = 3.3°C; diff from climate av: -0.2°C
Average humidity = 88%
Average dewpoint = 1.5°C
Average barometer = 1015.7 mb
Average windspeed = 9.3 mph
Average gustspeed = 12.7 mph
Average direction = 279° ( W )
Rainfall for month = 30.9 mm (-45mm)
Rainfall for year = 30.9 mm
Maximum rain per minute = 0.4 mm on day 27 at time 23:07
Maximum temperature = 10.9°C on day 07 at time 11:49
Minimum temperature = -8.2°C on day 31 at time 07:39
Maximum humidity = 94% on day 31 at time 10:40
Minimum humidity = 70% on day 28 at time 14:42
Maximum dewpoint = 8.9°C on day 07 at time 11:30
Minimum dewpoint = -9.1°C on day 31 at time 7:39
Maximum pressure = 1044.0 mb on day 02 at time 10:19
Minimum pressure = 981.7 mb on day 26 at time 21:42
Maximum windspeed = 36.8 mph from 338°(NNW) on day 27 at time 18:48
Maximum gust speed = 56.4 mph from 338°(NNW) on day 27 at time 15:37
Maximum heat index = 10.9°C on day 07 at time 11:49
Avg daily max temp :5.4°C
Avg daily min temp :0.7°C
Growing degrees days :0.0 GDD
Total windrun = 6170.5miles
Frost days= 12
-----------------------------------
Daily rain totals
-----------------------------------
00.6 mm on day 2
00.6 mm on day 8
04.1 mm on day 9
01.1 mm on day 12
00.6 mm on day 14
00.2 mm on day 16
00.9 mm on day 17
00.6 mm on day 18
01.1 mm on day 19
00.4 mm on day 20
02.2 mm on day 21
00.6 mm on day 22
00.4 mm on day 23
00.4 mm on day 24
00.6 mm on day 25
07.3 mm on day 26
06.5 mm on day 27
02.2 mm on day 29

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Normally by now, I would have added the statistics for the botanic gardens in Edinburgh to this thread to go with those statistics for Edinburgh Gogarbank. The one thing which prevents from doing that at the same time is that I have to wait until all of the data for that month's sunshine totals for the botanic gardens in Edinburgh are available because I can then report that here.

With Edinburgh Gogarbank, that isn't an issue because that data always comes right away from weathercast.co.uk, thus allowing me to use that data in each day's CC thread. That isn't the case with the botanic gardens in Edinburgh, probably because they don't use the same type of automated sunshine recorder there as what they use at Edinburgh Gogarbank.

In order for me to be able to get that data, I have to rely on the data for that station being updated on the Met Office's Weather Observations site. However, it appears as though that data is manually updated to that site by staff at the botanic gardens in Edinburgh. This happens no more than once on any given day, there are often days when this data isn't entered there at all and that is something which never happens during a weekend.

As things stand just now, that data hasn't been updated on that site for that particular station since 31 January 2019. Whenever this data is entered, the sunshine data is always whatever is recorded at 9am UTC on this day which will always be the data for up until the end of the previous day before that. As a result of that, I am still waiting for the sunshine total for 31 January 2019 itself to become available and it is only when that happens, that I can then produce a full report for that station here on this thread.

Another alternative would be to go by the data which the staff at the botanic gardens in Edinburgh release themselves once a month on their own website but as I write, their data for January 2019 has still not yet been released. I have absolutely no idea of what is causing this delay and what is holding everything up so if anyone knows anything about why this might be happening, I will be more than happy for them to let me know. This is very frustrating for me as well because we are now just over a quarter of the way through the following month of February and so, you would have thought that all of the data for January would have been available by now.

The only thing which I can therefore do in the meantime, is just to carry on waiting for that required to come through and once it eventually does, I will be producing that report for the botanic gardens in Edinburgh on this thread as soon as I possibly can.

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Summary for January 2019 in Watford

Temperature (°C):
Mean Minimum 0.9
Mean Maximum 7.4
Minimum -5.8 day 30
Maximum 13.0 day 25
Highest Minimum 8.3 day 12
Lowest Maximum 3.8 day 23
Air frosts 13

Rainfall (mm):
Total for month 21.0
Wettest day 4.2 day 26
High rain rate 7.2 day 12
Rain days 12
Dry days 19

Wind (mph):
Highest Gust 22.1 day 13
Gale days 0

Pressure (mb):
Maximum 1037.2 day 02
Minimum 976.2 day 31

Days with snow falling 9
Days with snow lying at 0900 7

https://blog.andrewlalchan.co.uk/watford-weather-january-2019-statistics/ 

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It's taken me a long time to get this data and indeed, the data for the botanic gardens in Edinburgh has still not been updated at the Met Office observations website since 31 January 2019. However, this data has now been updated on that station's own website and this means that I can now finally, give a full report for that station for last month at long last. I have noticed though that the botanic gardens' own website has just been given a major overhaul which probably accounts for the delays in that data being available.

On that not though, I can now give below, the final January statistics for The Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh from all of the data which I have available which are:

Temperature (°C):

Lowest Min: -5.8 (on 31/1)
Highest Min: 8.3 (on 15/1)
Mean Min: 1.3
Min. Anomaly: -0.1

Lowest Max: 0.8 (on 2/1)
Highest Max: 11.6 (on 7/1)
Mean Max: 6.5
Max. Anomaly: -0.5

Ave. Temp.: 3.9
Temp. Anomaly: -0.3

Air Frosts: 14 (145.8% of 1981-2010 average)
Ice Days: 0

Rainfall (mm):

Total for Month: 12.2 (18.1% of 1981/2010 average)
Wettest Day: 3.2 (on 29/1)
Rain Days: 4 (32.0% of 1981/2010 average)
Dry Days: 19
Longest Dry Spell: 7 days (7/1 to 13/1)
Highest Number of Days without a single dry day: 4 days (21/1 to 24/1)

Sunshine Totals (hrs):

Total For Month: 71.3 (133.3% of 1981-2010 average)
Sunniest Day: 6.9 (on 30/1)
Sunless Days: 9

Conclusion:

The first thing which we can notice is that January was a very slightly colder than average month at the botanic gardens in Edinburgh with an above average number of official air frosts. However, that is in complete contrast to how the rest of the winter has gone and that outcome has only occurred due to the much colder second half of the month which we had and it is almost certain that January will indeed, end up being the only colder than average month there within what has been a very poor winter overall.

January was also a very dry month and whatever happens between now and the end of this month, that will now go down as the driest month of this winter as a result. According to the botanic gardens' own website, it was the driest January on their records going back to 1976. However, official Met Office records which I have discovered show that it was probably actually the driest January there since 1953.

January was also a much sunnier than average month there. There was more sunshine there during January than what there was at Edinburgh Gogarbank although the actual total was slightly closer to the 1981-2010 average, than was the case at Edinburgh Gogarbank.

 

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