"Alex Stephens Jr" wrote in message
...
With a few days to go, the running mean for December at this site is a
whopping 5.1ºC. Easily the mildest December on my records (began 1994).
And I believe the mildest since 1989. It's approximately 2ºC above the
long term mean here.
The average max is 7.8ºC (+1.7ºC), and the average min. is 2.3ºC (+2.3ºC).

Alex, have you devised a local 30-year average, or are you comparing
with 1994-2003? If the latter, you should be aware that the 1994-2003
mean for December is roughly 0.2 to 0.5 degC *lower* than the
1971-2000 mean. So your positive anomaly will be that much bigger.
My figures also take account of the fact that the long-term mean for
1st-25th is 0.1-0.2 degC higher than that for the whole month.

Philip Eden

Philip Eden