I heard Philip mention his 'gut feeling' about the rest of the
winter...

"The weakness of the westerlies looks like it is going to continue.
Although the weather has mildened up a little bit over the last week
or so I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to see further periods of
really cold and snowy weather during the rest of the winter. There are
signs, though, that February might not be quite as cold as January is
likely to be. That's my gut feeling."

In which case we could be in for another really cold snap toward the
end of the month - to even out the current mildness...

He also put the historic December into context...saying that 1890 was
actually marginally colder in central England (CET series). He also
mentioned another series for Edinburgh which goes back two and a half
centuries - last month was coldest.

Other points of interest included that it was a very sunny month -
away from the south-east England which caught a lot of cloud coming in
off the southern North Sea. There was two and a half times the normal
amount of sunshine around the Ayrshire coast....