Christmas Day could be one of warmest on record in UK, predicts Met Office
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Band of ‘remarkably mild’ weather arrived in time for Christmas Eve, with 15C possible in some areas. Britain is on track for one of its warmest Christmases on record with the Met Office predicting temperatures that could peak at more than 6C above the seasonal average in some parts of the country.
The band of “remarkably mild” weather arrived in time for Christmas Eve, with forecasters expecting automated weather stations to record 13 to 14C across much of Britain, with 15C possible in places such as north-east Wales. While Christmas Day itself is expected to be a degree or so cooler, it will still be far warmer than the 6-7C typical for the time of year, and closer to the warmest UK Christmas on record, when 15.6C was logged in 1920 at Killerton in Devon.
“It might not be the crisp winter’s day that a lot of people appreciate on Christmas Day, but at least it’ll be mostly dry and settled,” said Aidan McGivern, a Met Office meteorologist. Commenting on what he called the “remarkably mild” Christmas Eve, he said: “This sort of weather is becoming increasingly traditional at Christmas time, I think, in the UK.”.
The warm front now parked over Britain swung in from the Atlantic and covered the entire country in a blanket of cloud, though there will be some breaks for the sun to peek through. The front arrived courtesy of a mangle-like mechanism, with Britain sitting between a low pressure to the north, which generates anticlockwise winds, and a high pressure to the south, which drives clockwise winds.
