NE England sunshine

[Ken Cook]

Hi, All,
At Durham Observatory this is already the sunniest January on record since 1881! The record was 94 hours in 1959 but the current total stands at 97.4 hours.
Some areas on the coast, often the sunniest in UK during south westerly flows in winter, are already well above 100 hours
Copley stands at 95.5hr(132%, norm 72.4hr)R&D electronic. The highest electronic here is 101.3hr in 2007, so getting close, but a cloudy forecast.
Campbell Stokes is now 88.7hr, highest on my record, but that is just back to 2015
Ken
Copley
nr Barnard Castle
Teesdale

[Ken Cook]

Now  a gale!
Copley 16:30Z SW 36G45KT
Ken

[Julian Mayes]

Hi Ken, 

Thanks for the snippet about Durham Obs's sunshine - really important info - sunshine records can't be longer than that!  But, it seems odd that Durham sunshine data does not appear in the Weather log supplement in Weather each month.   I wonder why that is?  Maybe you have inside information :)  

I gave the Durham sunshine a mention on twitter this morning after a rather pointless tweet from BBC Weather referring to Boulmer having it's 'sunniest Jan on record'.  BUT, they did not say how long the record is there. I love stirring twitter up. A Met Office forecaster then chipped in with the apparent answer - 1980. (altho' according to the Monthly Weather Report it is 1976 but let's not split hairs).   

  Julian