JANUARY was warm, despite the cold snap during the final week, very wet and windy, but reasonably sunny.

Generally in the region, there was around one and a half times the average rainfall. In 2003, January was the only month to be appreciably wetter than normal, ie. by more than 20pc, here at Carlton, near Stokesley. This year, it was substantially more sodden - the wettest January in my 20 years of data. The previous record-holder was in 1984 (104mm, 4.1ins), with 1995 (101mm, 4.0ins) not far behind. Let's hope that this aspect of the past month's weather isn't going to set the trend during the coming year.

After the atrocious conditions, with heavy snow and strong winds late on New Year's Eve, a mild, Atlantic airstream swept in at the start of January. However, the cold air made a fleeting return from the east in the early hours of the 3rd, as a new depression formed over northern France on the front responsible for the original change. This low deepened quickly as it slipped south-east into the Mediterranean, but its influence was soon lost on us.

After this, the south-westerlies held sway across the British Isles for much of the month, with depressions heading north-east over the ocean, mainly to the north of Scotland. Associated fronts crossed the country every other day or so bringing belts of rain, occasionally heavy, with more brisk breezes.

We saw a subtle variation between the 9th and 14th as a large, intense depression meandered about to the south-east of Iceland. A series of small, secondary lows ran east around it across southern Britain. We remained in cool westerlies, accompanied by a lot of showers. To the east of the Pennines, these became few and far between, apart from on Sunday the 11th.

As one of the depressions tracked further north on Thursday the 15th, we caught a belt of very heavy rain during the afternoon, with snow down to quite low levels for a couple of hours. This caused the usual chaos for traffic heading home, except along coastal routes, where, if there were any hold-ups, it was due to local flooding.

On the following Sunday, very mild air was carried north from south of the Azores as high pressure nosed briefly in towards south-west England. Frontal systems edging round the top of the high came up against a very cold, continental airstream when they reached the North Sea. Consequently, one after another, they became slow moving close to the North-East, before, in turn, sliding away south-eastwards. This led to several days of dismal, overcast skies and although rain or drizzle was only slight, it was persistent.

At the end of that week, a front pushed more resolutely from the west and behind it the cloud cleared to give a fine, sunny week-end. However, its parent low deepened over Scandinavia and with an anti-cyclone building strongly near to Greenland, a northerly flow developed direct from the Arctic. This surged across the British Isles on the Monday. The weathermen had been warning of our impending doom, surprisingly as long as a week before. It was bad, but no worse than we should expect for the odd spell or two in any winter. It certainly wasn't exceptional - lower temperatures were recorded only in January last year.

Very heavy snow fell on Tuesday evening, with as much as 10cm (4ins) in an hour, fortunately, with little wind to blow it about. The authorities had obviously taken note of the dire predictions this time and main roads were well salted, but still there was the inevitable crawl into Middlesbrough by road next morning. Wednesday brought lighter falls but now with a ferocious wind at times, especially towards the coast. This whipped up the snow in to drifts. Gritting lorries weren't able to cope on a few roads and these became impassable. By the Thursday, mild air was filtering back from the west. The final 36 hours of January were horribly wet as a depression trundled east across our region.

There have been a lot of lovely, pink sunrises recently. We are aware of them at this time of the year as sunrise occurs about the time most of us are getting up and going to work. They brighten the sky when there is a lot of high cloud around. In December, particularly during the fine, middle week, this high cloud was linked to fronts far to the north. Since these were not coming our way, I'm afraid the Shepherds' foreboding, according to the saying, was inappropriate - as they frequently are, as is also their delight when there is a red sky at night.

Occasionally, the proverb is right, including a few times this month, no better example being the warning early on the 15th. On such mornings, the progressive thickening of the high cloud, typically from the south or west, is a surer sign of the approaching bad weather. With a red sunset, after a period of possibly heavy rain, look out for a definite clearance of the cloud to the west or north for re-assurance that the anticipated improvement is not misguided. The best advice is to listen to a Met Office forecast, but even with these you have to be sure you're listening to one for our area and to know the local vagaries that often appear to make them incorrect.