Hurricane Bawbag

An intense storm passed over Scotland yesterday, with hurricane-force winds on hilltops (the Cairngorm station in the highlands recorded a gust of 165 mph). The Monifieth station recorded a maximum of only 58 kph (around 40 mph) but even so, it managed to dislodge some PVC siding on my house, so some repairs will be necessary (grumble). No records were broken at the Monifieth station though.
On the Internet, the storm got christened 'hurricane bawbag'. A 'bawbag' is Scottish slang for the scrotum ('ball bag', basically). There is even a wikipedia article on it already. From news reports, the storm was a lot worse in the west of Scotland, where a lot of places are still without power and a lot more damage was done.

Warm November

November 2011 was exceptionally mild, with a mean temperature 2.3 C above normal for Monifieth. Rainfall was about average.
December is starting off on a much colder note though, so the overall mean temperature for the year could work out at close to normal. Hopefully we can avoid the misery of snow falling on a country that seems to think if you just ignore the stuff it won't cause any problems.

Another weird year

For the second year in a row, the warmest temperature of the year was not recorded in the summer. In 2010 the year's hottest temperature was in May; this year it was in late September (that is, assuming no higher temperature is on the cards for the rest of the year). Unlike the rest of the UK, there were no records broken for hottest October temperature since for the past couple of days it's been thoroughly cloudy and rainy up here. Before the global warming crowd jumps in, however, it must be remembered that the three traditional summer months of June, July and August were all distinctly colder than normal.

February: warmer but wet

With some warmer days in the last week, February 2011 managed to buck the trend of colder than average months that had hung on for more than a year. It was, however, the wettest February on record for the Monifieth station, with close to twice the monthly average rainfall.
Because of the cold winter, crocuses were appearing only at the end of February, when usually we would see some at the start of the month. No sign of any daffodils yet, though with the weather for the next week forecast to be moderately warm for the time of year, and settled under a large area of high pressure, we might see things start to grow.

Cold January but not a record

The first month of 2011 (where does the time go?) has gone into the record books as a fair bit colder than normal, but still a bit warmer than January 2010. The cold temperatures were due mainly to the beginning of the month which saw the last (hopefully) of the snow disappear off the streets. The last couple of weeks have been dominated by highish pressure which has resulted in mostly dull and uneventful weather. The month's rainfall was a bit below average but nothing remarkable.

The big high

Graph watchers may have noticed that in most years, the highest pressure of the year occurs around mid-December, with the (barometric) mercury usually hitting around 1040 mm for a week or so. In December 2010, there was a very brief high pressure period, but that month seemed mainly preoccupied with dumping snow on Monifieth and keeping the temperatures unseasonably low.
However, after the new year, weather patterns seem to be returning more or less to normal. The pressure has been building for the past week or so and currently sits around the 1040 mm we would expect for mid-December.
Although January 2011 continues the colder-than-normal pattern, the cold weather we are getting now is of the more usual type, with crisp, sunny days and overnight frosts. Hopefully normalcy has resumed for real and there isn't some huge snow-dump waiting round the corner.

Ice gone, finally

For the first time since the last week in November, my street is totally ice- and snow-free. Also for the first time since late November, the temperature has gone above 10 C, and allowed me to go outdoors wearing only a light jacket rather than the winter coat + scarf + funny hat + gloves. Sadly the temperature is set to fall again over the next few days, but hopefully we'll be spared streets covered in sheets of death-ice, where venturing outdoors risks a visit to the broken bone clinic.
It wouldn't be so bad if there was a community spirit in this country that told people to clear the sidewalks (or 'pavements' as they insist on calling them here) when it snowed. The first few years I was in Scotland I always did this whenever we got snow (which was a lot less often than lately), but then I noticed that I was the only one on my street (or any other) that did this, so it seemed fairly pointless. But leaving the snow on the 'pavements' to get compacted into ice that is impossible to take a step on without performing unintentional gymnastics is just plain anti-social.