1951

1951 contained the third coldest spring of the century (7.0C), and a very wet November.

January. Cool, unsettled, and wet.

February. Very wet, with flooding.

March. Cold and wet.

April. A cool (6.8C) April in a run of mild ones. Indeed, this is the only April with an average beneath 7.0C between 1941 and 1956. On the 13th of April, 13 cm wide snowflakes were reported as fallin on Berkhamsted. The month had a wet first half in the southeast, but then an anticyclonic second half everywhere. It was a dry month in the parts of the north. It was however a sunny month, with 221 hours of sunshine recorded at Falmouth and 194 at Kew. 

May. Cool, cloudy, and wet in England; sunny in Scotland, where it was dry from the 3rd to the 18th.

June. Quite dry and sunny.

July. The first three weeks of the month were very dry; after the dry June, there was talk of drought. It was warm and anticyclonic from the 13th to the 21st. A trough of low pressure crossed the country on the 22nd, with much colder air following. This led to some violent and unusually widespread thunderstorms: only parts of East Anglia and the East Midlands "escaped" them (or, as those of us who love storms think, were unlucky). 25 mm of rain fell over a very wide area from the SE to Scotland, with much flooding and lightning damage. There were three deaths due to lightning. At Kenton, near Exeter, 25 mm of rain fell in an hour, and 74 mm fell that day, with consequent flooding. 77 mm fell at Farnham. Some main roads in the south were closed due to flooding and road damage.

August. Very wet and cool.

September. A dull month everywhere. 85 mm of rain fell in 24 hours at Oxford on the 6th.

October. October was the driest month of 1951. There was an absolute drought of 23 days at Tynemouth. A sunny month. 69F (20.6C) was recorded at Llandudno on the 9th.

November.Extremely wet: the wettest November in Scotland this century, where there were frequent daily falls of over 25 mm. The England and Wales rainfall average was 181 mm. Some areas in the South and Midlands (e.g. around Birmingham and Salisbury) received over three times their expected totals. After a fairly dry first part of the autumn, very wet weather set in on the 4th, with a slow moving front, SE winds, and 24 hours of heavy rain: 75 mm across the south, west, Wales, and the north, and 125 mm in parts of Scotland (including Perthshire and Aberdeenshire). There was flooding of the Ouse and Severn flood plains, particularly in York. The flood levels peaked in the north on the 10th and in Gloucester on the 12th; as they started to subside, there was more rain. The south and SE were particularly hard-hit, with flooding from Sussex to Buckinghamshire to Somerset. 382 mm of rain were recorded in the Lake District between the 14th and 20th. Also very mild.

December. Mild and very wet, especially in the N and W. It was (until 2006) the sunniest December on record in Aberdeen. It was dry in the SE though, with 37 mm of precipitation at Kew.