The extremely mild spell is driven by a flow of warm, moist air pushing across the UK from the Canary Islands and further south in the Atlantic and has resulted in the unusual situation of one weather system breaking weather records for two days in separate calendar years. As well as mild temperatures it has also brought cloud and outbreaks of rain for some.
This spell has led to a number of provisional records being set both yesterday and today (1st Jan 2022). 16.5 C was reached at Bala on 31st December 2021 which is a New Year’s Eve record for the UK and Wales.
All other UK countries also set New Year’s Eve daily maximum temperature records. Keswick in England reached 15.9 C, Kinlochewe in Scotland reached 16.1 C, and Magilligan reached 15.0 C in Northern Ireland.
A daily minimum temperature of 13.2 C recorded at Chivenor, in Devon is provisionally a new UK and England record for January. This beats the previous UK record of 13.1C set at Magilligan (Londonderry) in 2016 and the previous English record of 13.0C set at London St James Park in 2008.
There is also a new Welsh January daily minimum temperature record with Trawsgoed (Dyfed) recording 12.8C beating the previous record of 12.5C set at Gogerddan (Dyfed) in 2016.
New Years Day has also seen very mild temperatures with 16.3 C recorded at St James Park. This beats the previous record for New Years Day of 15.6 C at Bude (Cornwall) in 1916 setting another provisional record.
