IF you thought February was sunnier than usual, you were right. Locally it was the sunniest every seen at Rothamsted Research in Harpenden and they have been keeping sunshine records since 1891. It was also the driest February for 10 years with rainfall l

IF you thought February was sunnier than usual, you were right. Locally it was the sunniest every seen at Rothamsted Research in Harpenden and they have been keeping sunshine records since 1891.

It was also the driest February for 10 years with rainfall less that half the average at 21.9mm. The wettest day with just under 5mm was February 4.

Not only was sunshine a record at 145 hours, it was also way ahead of the previous best of 1998 which only saw 116.7 hours. There were just two days without any sun at all and the most was the 9.1 hours recorded on both February 17 and 18.

The lowest temperature was -5.1C on February 17 and the highest was 14.6C on February 9. This was the sixth highest temperature at Rothamsted since those particular records began to be kept in 1908.

The high pressure during the month brought 12 air frost and 20 ground frosts.