The Burnham-On-Sea area is experiencing its warmest December for years, with forecasters predicting more mild weather to come.
On Wednesday (December 16th), the thermometer reach 14.7°C at mid-day, while the lowest temperature overnight was 12.8°C at 6am.
Steve Baggs, a Brent Knoll weather enthusiast, said: “The mild weather that we experienced in November is still with us, and the mean temperature so far this month is 11.1°C.”
“The average for the first half of December in previous years is 5.2°C, ranging from 1.3°C for the first half of Decemer 2010 to 7.5°C in 2013. The current extraordinarily mild spell follows the warmest November we have recorded.”
“At this point in December we would normally have seen several air frosts: on average the thermometer here has dipped below zero on five or six occasions by the 16th. There had been 11 air frosts at this point in December 2010, but only one in 2011. In the first half of December this year the lowest temperature we have seen is 2.3°C – there have been no air frosts at all.”
“As with November, the cause of this mildness is a persistent air flow from the south Atlantic: a conveyer belt of warm, wet air. Satellite images taken during the devastating rainfall in Cumbria from the low pressure system ‘Desmond’ showed a line of cloud stretching right back to the Bahamas, and as this warm, humid air rose over the Lake District Fells it deposited rain for hour after hour. The rainfall total here so far this month is a modest 18.6mm, and apart from the unseasonal temperatures the main effect of the air stream has been a blanket of cloud – it has been unrelentingly dull and gloomy.”
