A bit nippy for the time of year

It's a bit nippy of late but no complaints from me. March 23, 1916 was really nippy with a max of 1.1 degrees Celsius.
It's the wind and lack of sunshine that makes you put on two sets of cloth. Last night the effect of windchill was near minus 20 C. and I still don't complain. Britain has much worse weather conditions at the moment. Snowdrifts 15ft high in Cumbria, cars buried in snow. Extreme windchill on Cairngorm, Scotland, of -26 C. with gusts up to 100 miles per hour (160km/u). Walking on ridges and high terrain would be impossible.

Watching several webcams the West Highlands don't seem to have much snow. At least no more than usual at this time of year.
47 days from now I'm going over Ladhar Bheinn and Luinne Bheinn.

Warmest 22nd ever recorded

Today was the warmest 22nd of October ever recorded in The Netherlands. With a staggering 22 degr.C. it was one of the warmest places in Europe today. T-shirts all day.

However, it will all change in 5 days time when the max temperature will be 8 C..

I'm afraid the colours of autumn will leave us soon. 

The Gooilust estate - beeches.

Coldest night since 1956

Last week we had a little dusting of snow locally - 1cm - before a high pressure area settled in Europe. After a very late start of winter we've had frost now for almost a week and yesterday what started as another dusting of snow in the morning turned into 20cm/8 inch in Lelystad, 50km from where I live. This night temperature in Lelystad was as low as minus 22,8 C. (at sealevel!), the coldest night in The Netherlands since 1956.
The demand for electricity will be high but I don't think there will be any produced by wind.

Weatherstatistics december

December 2011: warm, ver wet, sunshine normal.

The average temperature was 6,5 dgr.C. (normally 3,7), lowest temperature recorded was -1,9
and the highest 13,4.

The average rainfall was 150mm (normally 80mm)

Hours of sunshine : 52 (normally 49)

On November 30th I mentioned the driest november ever recorded in The Netherlands and in the comments Alan Sloman offered to share the British torrential rain with us.
The raingods listened and did send us rain, a lot of it. Alan, can you please ask the gods to send us less rain ? The temperature is fine (good for the energybill) but the lowcountries have turned into the flowcountries and enough is enough.

Driest November ever recorded

Fellow bloggers Alan Sloman , Martin Rye , James Boulter and Andy Walker have been to the Yorkshire Dales where the weather has been a bit on the damp side last weekend. To say the least.
As Alan writes : "The weather forecast, unsurprisingly, was for wall to wall torrential downpours with a healthy dose of stormy buffeting." and "By this time the weather had taken an even more serious turn for the very worserer! It looked like firemen were training their hoses on the windows of the pub."

It's grim up north indeed.

On this side of the Northsea however November 2011 has been the driest november ever recorded with an average rainfall of only 9mm. The waterlevel of the river Rhine is very low at the moment and the Brits are to blame ;-) You're keeping all this stuff to yourselfs.
A year ago we were buried in snow during december but it's 10 dgrs Celsius today and no sign of snow coming. I prefer the 'no-snow-scenario' and just a little bit of rain now and then.
If I want torrential downpours I'll come to Great-Wet-Britain.

'Summer' statistics

Could someone please send me a box of sunshine ?

This summer has been the wettest since 1906. In June, July and August the average rainfall in the Netherlands was 350mm, that's 100mm more than normal in this period.
It has also been a bit nippy : average temperature 16,3 C (normally 17 C) and being wetter it feels even colder.
20+ days : 50 (ave. 60), 25+ days : 7 (ave. 21), 30+ days : 2 (ave. 4).
Hours of sunshine have been 525 instead of the usual 608. Especially July and August have been gloomy.
I know you're about to say "we've had a lovely spring this year" but that seems so long ago !
With autumn coming closer, or is it winter ?, I'd like to take a looooong sleep.