December saw some settled weather but also some stormy periods. A major winter storm on 5th brought strong winds to Scotland with a storm-surge mainly affecting the east coast. A succession of deep Atlantic low pressure systems brought heavy rain and very strong winds for most areas, with frequent gusts of 60 to 70 mph. This was the windiest December in records from 1969 and one of the windiest calendar months since January 1993. On Christmas Eve a mean-sea-level-pressure of 936 hPa was recorded at Stornoway (Western Isles), the lowest such value at a UK land station for many years.

The UK mean temperature was 5.7 °C, which is 1.8 °C above the 1981-2010 average, provisionally the warmest December since 1988.The UK overall received 154% of average rainfall and Scotland had its wettest December in a series from 1910. There was provisionally 108% of the long-term average hours of bright sunshine, with western areas rather dull but central and eastern England much sunnier than average. Visit our climate section for a full written summary of the month.

Your pictures

Thank you for sharing your pictures of December weather on Twitter. Here are some of our favourites…

@metoffice Taken by @photography_jmj during the recent storms and high tides at Meadfoot Beach,Torquay #storms pic.twitter.com/uYgEtmefLr

— JMJPhotography (@photography_jmj) January 10, 2014

@metoffice Sunset over Coventry pic.twitter.com/fb7L1xpFyq

— Trevor sutton (@Trevorsutton71) January 10, 2014

@metoffice jack frost in stalbans pic.twitter.com/1zP0uhe7iP

— Jon h (@67jrde) January 10, 2014

@metoffice early morning around 17th December @WalesCoastPath in Flint looking towards Flintshire bridge pic.twitter.com/LAFvfftAU8

— Angela Thomas (@AMcKT) January 10, 2014

@metoffice pic.twitter.com/IqBs8FJG5x

— Stacy Simpson (@StacySimpson82) January 10, 2014

@metoffice Flooding on North Shields Fish Quay, North Tyneside. pic.twitter.com/6o7g1gVTCU

— Christian Cerisola (@ChristianCeriso) January 10, 2014