Averages in the weather – be it rainfall, sunshine or temperature – can conceal great extremes, even during the course of a single month. So, although mean temperatures during February 2009 were close to the long-term average for the years 1971-2000, this masked major variations from one end of the month to the other.
The warmest temperature was on the penultimate day of February, when the mercury reached 16.2C in Faversham, Kent – usually one of the coldest parts of the UK in winter, because of its proximity to the continent. The coldest was a bone-chilling -18.4C in Aviemore, on 7 February.
The differences are explained because during the first half of February 2009, Britain experienced very cold weather with heavy falls of snow. These began on the first night of the month, and caused major disruption to travellers: first in the south and east of England, and later in western and northern England, Wales and finally Scotland, where Balmoral, on Deeside, had 42cm of snow lying on 7 February.
This was the first time the whole of the UK had been affected by widespread snowfalls for almost two decades, since the winter of 1990-91. But more was to come: the following two winters, 2009/10 and 2010/11, were both very cold and snowy.
