"John Hall" wrote in message
...
These are CET daily mean temps in degrees Celsius for the 3 winter
months over the period 1772-2007 (2006 in the case of December).

Jan Feb Dec
1 3.29 3.92 5.11
2 3.30 3.86 5.02
3 3.18 3.99 5.05
4 3.38 3.99 5.08
5 3.23 4.07 5.14
6 3.36 4.11 4.80
7 3.18 4.23 4.59
8 3.21 3.98 4.36
9 3.35 3.93 4.17
10 3.43 3.92 4.27
11 3.28 3.80 4.18
12 3.04 3.71 4.37
13 3.28 3.63 4.49
14 3.31 3.72 4.49
15 3.19 3.97 4.39
16 3.34 3.89 4.32
17 3.34 3.74 4.42
18 3.30 3.73 4.38
19 3.44 3.76 4.06
20 3.29 3.73 3.93
21 3.48 4.14 3.94
22 3.56 4.33 3.87
23 3.50 4.45 3.82
24 3.51 4.40 3.77
25 3.39 4.48 3.44
26 3.46 4.45 3.41
27 3.62 4.59 3.41
28 3.54 4.50 3.40
29 3.72 - 3.64
30 3.79 - 3.59
31 3.96 - 3.44

I didn't bother with Feb 29th, as calculating the mean would have been
too fiddly to be worthwhile.

I've already commented on January in another post. February shows a
tendency to be a bit colder between about the 11th and 20th, giving some
credence to the Buchan cold spell (which the singularity work of Brooks
and Lamb I believe also identified). The last week is notably milder.

December shows a tendency for a relative cold period from about the 8th
to 12th. It then cools down again from about the 19th. There's no sign
of a post-Christmas mild spell, though, with the 25th to 31st being the
coldest part of the month. I suspect that the mean for the last 100
years only might show very different trends.
--
John Hall

"The covers of this book are too far apart."
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)

Thanks for these figures, John. Very interesting. What strikes me about
them though is how un-smooth they are for an average of 235 years. For
example, in the second half of February the temperature rises from 3.73 to
4.45 in just 3 days. This rather suggests that the winter temperature
profile has changed during that period, and probably several times. For
example it changed after Buchan's time, resulting in the poor fellow
getting an undeserved raspberry from the meteorological cognoscenti.

My 21-year mean temperature falls throughout December to a minimum in the
week between Christmas and the New Year, rises to the mid-January maximum,
then falls to the last week of January. It then rises to the 6th of
February, after which comes a cold period from the 8th to the 19th which, as
you say, roughly corresponds to Buchan's First Cold Spell, but overshoots it
by 5 days.

Ian Bingham,
Inchmarlo, Aberdeenshire.

"I will take mine ease at mine inn
And let the world wag."

(Unknown Elizabethan)