Surprisingly rainfall was only a little above average and the sunshine total was up by about 40 hours.

January was slightly wetter and colder than average but had 60 hours of sunshine.

It also had the coldest day of the year on the 6th (minus 8.1C) with temperatures below zero from 6pm on the 5th to midnight on the 6th/7th.

There was low pressure in the first part of February and a snow cover from the 2nd to the 11th with 12 air frosts.

High pressure brought dull and cloudy weather but higher temperatures in the second half of the month and rainfall totals were well below average.

March also was a "dry" month and had many sunny days with temperatures above average, but there were gale force winds on 7th, 9th, 23rd and 25th.

April had less than 50mms of rain with temperatures well above normal and again produced lots of sunshine, but May was the wettest month of spring with 116.5mms, although sunshine hours and temperature figures were above average.

A disappointing summer on the whole began with a relatively dry June that showed well above average temperatures having maximum figures of over 20C on 14 days and being the sunniest month of the year.

July however had more than double its normal rainfall (180.4mms) but sunshine hours were down, whereas temperatures were close to the 1971-2000 average.

The first two days were very warm (maxima over 28C and a night temperature of 17.5C on the 2nd), but the second wettest July day on record was recorded on 17th (39.0mms).

August had slightly below average rainfall and was also the warmest month at 15.9C, although it was slightly cloudier than normal.

It also contained the second warmest August night on record at 17.7C (20th).

There was a dry start to the autumn with less than half the expected September rainfall and slightly above average temperatures and sunshine, and October was quite a sunny month with below average rainfall and reasonable temperatures, the first frost of the season being recorded on the 14th (at minus 0.4C).

It was November however which produced over double the normal rainfall with a total of 320mms. There was flooding following heavy rain (45.3mms) on the 17th, followed by further downpours on the 22nd and 23rd.

Sunshine amounts were down as might be expected but temperatures were slightly above the mean.

December was remarkable because after quite a mild start the second half of the month produced some very wintry weather with snow falling on nine days and reaching a maximum depth of 15cms on the 24th as well as some low temperatures with an absolute minimum of minus 7.8C on the 20th, although the frosty weather brought more sunshine than average.

The monthly temperature graphs show that on nine occasions there were positive anomalies.