Provisional figures from the Met Office show that February so far (1 – 25) has been colder and drier than average, while the winter as a whole (December 1 to February 25) looks set to be pretty average.

For February, everywhere is set to have been colder than average with the UK mean temperature currently standing at 2.7 °C. Northern parts have seen the best of the sunshine with Scotland recording 13 % more sunshine than average at 71 hours.

For the winter as a whole, the UK mean temperature of 3.3 °C makes it milder than 2008/09 (3.2 °C), 2009/10 (1.6 °C) and 2010/11 (2.4 °C), but colder than 2011/12 (4.6 °C).

However looking further back 2006/07 and 2007/08 were two very mild winters with UK mean temperatures of 5.6 °C and 4.9 °C respectively. The 2006/07 winter was the second warmest on the national record going back to 1910, behind 1988/89 when the UK mean temperature was 5.8 °C.

This winter has once again demonstrated how variable the weather in the UK can be. Starting with some mild and wet weather in December and a mild start to January it turned cold from the middle of January with snow affecting many areas at times. The cold weather continued through February which was a dry month.