For the first time in ages it was warmer inland than the coast; 14.8*C max here as opposed to 14.5*C at Hurn for example.

Combined with the overnight low of 12.3*C, the mean of 13.6*C gives a new record high date anomaly for the year, at a whopping +9.07*C.

Attention for the next possible super-anomaly turns to Tuesday 22nd which is currently predicted to have a min of 12*C and a max of 14*C by the 12z GFS op run. That'd give an anomaly of +8.51 so not quite as extreme as today - but it'd be the 5th date this month to achieve more than +8.00 and the 11th managing at least +7.00. Yes that's right - half the days up to the 22nd more than 7*C above their date LTAs!

Max today of 16.1C, low of 12.1C.

Even now it's pushing 15C (14.7C to be precise).

Definitely remarkable..

No idea what the local record is for December but Linton on Ouse reached 16.1C as well - can't see any higher than that in December in over 40 years of records.

15.5C in gosport today/yesterday after overnight low of 13.7C.

I recorded a low of 12c here in Perth on Friday night, lower than what most of England was recording. Summer here, Winter with you guys. I bet that does not happen often. 30c today in the sunshine though, very pleasant.

No surprises with this temperature update for my location; it's been bonkers balmy!

Yesterday broke my date record max by 6*C and record high min by 4.9*C. That's impressive despite the short nature of the series used for the records.

Having set 5 record maxes and 5 record high mins in a row, the total number of new records this month for each now stand at 12 and 14 respectively. So it's basically gone and re-written the historical data for this month in terms of those extremes.

Yet even in this most extraordinarily mild of months, I have had one night close to freezing which allowed a grass frost to form.

The outlook from the GFS 06z op run suggests a date record today which does look to have fallen, followed by something close to that tomorrow and then a significant step up on Tuesday. After a brief pause the records resume for the Big Day and Boxing Day, and threaten to persist to the end of the month depending on the ability of high pressure over Europe to gain the upper hand and allow for a less maritime airmass with cooler night temps as a result.

The last time we had that possibility, the maritime air won out and the mean ended up more than 3*C higher than GFS had predicted so it will be interesting to see if something similar takes place this time around.

To finish for the time being, how about the month-to-date (19th) stats?

11.31*C (+6.46*C).

The anomaly in brackets is against a 1981-2010 mean.

The model output suggests it may edge beyond +6.50*C once Tuesday 22nd's stats are in. This is so far beyond anything I've ever known - even in July 2006 such anomalies were probably only achieved for about 10 days of the month (I didn't do the calculations back then so this is just a guess).

Here we are - 21st December and up to yesterday, only 6 days have failed to reach 12c this Autumn/Winter, and NONE in December.

Mean for the month is 11.8c with an absolute minimum of 5.8c.

For the second Sunday in a row yesterday I was out in the garden in shirtsleeves mowing the lawn and pruning the roses.

Bonkers.

Skies clearing and the wind has fallen light and veered more westerly. In a normal December you would expect the temperature to plummet..but no.. not this December..effortlessly back up to 12.6c. Incredible. 

I was in Koblenz last Thursday (17th) and, appropriately enough, the temperature was 17C on a shop's digital thermometer. Definietly shirt-sleeve weather!

My sister-in-law, who comes from that area, just won't believe me!

My mean maximum temperature for the month (including today if it doesn't rise further) currently stands at 13.14C. My previous highest mean max for Dec was 10.8C in 2013, and historically my maxima tend to be slightly lower than official stations in the area.

Maxed yesterday at 11.8c. Today has reached 12.8 at 03:28   Now 12.6c. 

Max of 14.2c today with a minimum of 12.7c and a mean month of 12.1c

Astounding doesn`t begin to describe this month!

I wonder if in a century's time it'll go down as one of those 'can't quite believe it's true' months like May 1833: 1.2C above its nearest rival. The only other one near would have been April 2011 if April 2007 hadn't happened.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/mly_cet_mean_sort.txt

EDIT: I'd love to see the synoptics for may 1833. Must've been amazing- May 1989 and 1992 were amazing enough.

Here's a question for other geographers: where in Europe would there regularly be December weather close to mine this month: mean max 13C, mean min 8.7; wet quite frequently, windy at times, no air frosts but one (maybe two) ground frosts. It would need to be a place that reflects our Western seaboard location.

I think the Scilly Isles have 10 and 7 as a long-running max and mean, so they fall short.

Let's go South:Ile D'Oleron (Atlantic coast of France) appears to have a mean daily of 8C (can't find max & min);

Biarritz is good for the days, but well below at night.

Any ideas?

Yay! I knew my time would come! Shall I cancel our summer family holiday now?

13.9*C here today after a 10.0*C minimum last night.

I've just done a projection for my local mean using the 12z GFS op run and arrived at a value of 11.04*C for the month, which is 6.34*C above the LTA.

+6.34*C!

I mean that's just... there are no words!

It would also mean that the first Double Digit December that I know of for this location would also hit the 11*C benchmark. 

Since I started recording the temps in detail, the mildest December has managed to come in at 6.50*C which was 'only' 1.8*C above the LTA. That was 2006 and I thought that was a balmy winter!

Breaking things down into the max and min values, the projected mean max (and anomaly) is impressive enough at +12.56*C (+5.06*C), but the projected mean min steals the show with a value of 9.38*C (+7.58*C). 

Now for the most astounding comparative stat of all... the highest mean max in my records going back to 2000 is 9.1*C in 2006, so the mean min this month would beat the previous highest mean max!  The next highest mean min is all the way down at +4.17*C, set in 2011.

Given the general pattern in place, I'd be surprised if the actual outcome was much lower than these projections. If anything they could be higher based on recent trends with respect to the final couple of days of the month.

Now please excuse me while I have some kind of meltdown 

On that basis James then it seems that we are now on course for the famous Hadley figure to be in excess of 10C meaning the all time CET record of 8.1C will be annihilated by 2C or possibly more than that.

I think its fair to say that none of us have ever experienced anything like this before. I've never known a mild winter month in this class at all.

We have another UK maximum temperature date record today. Met Office confirm that Writtle at 16.2C was the highest figure today.

The previous record was 16.1C at Hoylake in 1910.

That is the third date record this month to follow the four records in November.

Here is a table of the date records so far this year. December is still provisional as manual stations will only report at the end of the month. In particular there is a possibility that 8 December will see another record. Currently the high is 14.9C at Gravesend and the date record is 15.0C. Quite possible that a manual station in SE England will have reported a figure in excess of 15C.

There is some dispute about the date record on 1 Jan this year. The article in Weather Magazine from which the figures on the Torro website are taken says 15.0C was the date record until this year. However, the Met Office in a Facebook post on 2 Jan say the current record is 15.6C at Bude in 1916.

It was a crystal clear sky this morning, which just the day after the winter solstice you would imagine would lead to a decent frost. But no, the overnight low was.... 9.1C! (Edit... actually that was the low to 6am. The lowest hourly reading was actually 7.4C at 8am - still remarkably high)


And talking of the solstice, some places were as warm or warmer on the winter solstice than the summer one!

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/winter-solstice-2015-as-warm-as-june-summer-solstice-met-office-uk-weather-a6782736.html

I wonder if that's a precedent, Rob. I thought maybe 1977 because the June was rubbish but it missed it by a couple of days (solstice mean 11.1C June, 11.3 on 23rd.) I bet GW would know.

Out of interest, with the warmth both day and night being so persistent for two months, I wonder what the SST anomaly might be like in the English Channel, Irish Sea or Southern North Sea; I wonder if the sea is warmer than it was in the summer; and then, if the Channel gets a head start in spring, would that have a delaying or tempering effect on sea breezes, leading potentially (given the right conditions) to higher spring/ early summer temperatures along the South Coast.

This month is going to be one of the most remarkable months,temperature wise, in the whole of the CET record,the likes of which may not happen again for centuries.As Gw pointed out December 2015 is looking like being warmer than every December,January,February,March and November(except Nov `94) on record. Incredible absolutely incredible and there is no end in sight,could the warmest January cet record be under threat too??