A year after the Beast, Scotland basks in record winter highs

In Scotland, good weather is rarely unconditional. Take the honey bees, for instance. You’d think the wee fellas would be delighted with all this unseasonably good weather, but you’d be wrong. In Edinburgh on Saturday, Michelle Wood, who sells organic vegetables from her stall in the farmers market below the castle, was delivering a lesson in bee welfare. “People are tempted to cut their lawns too early when the weather is as mild as this in February,” she said. “That means the daisies and dandelions, which are a vital source of food for the honey bees, get cut, too, thus endangering the hive. I’m starting a campaign to raise awareness of this.”

In Princes Street Gardens and up by the National Monument on Calton Hill, little clutches of daffodils were gathering, soon to announce their riotous presence. At the head gardener’s house at the east end of the Gardens, purples, pinks and yellows were already emerging. It is hard to believe that in this week last year all these places, along with just about everywhere else in Scotland, were impassable amid massive snowdrifts. The country’s first ever red warning for snow was issued as the “Beast from the East” occupied most of the UK and held it fast for two weeks.

Exactly one year later, Aboyne in Aberdeenshire broke Scotland’s February temperature record last week, a record which had held for more than 120 years. The highest temperature previously recorded for this month in Scotland was 17.9C in Aberdeen on 22 February 1897. Last Thursday afternoon, the dial crept up to 18.3C in Aboyne.

So much snow fell during this period last year across the UK that the giant drifts, especially in rural areas, kept many roads impassable weeks after the temperature began to rise. Isolated communities often had to rely on the kindness of local farmers who used their tractors to maintain a basic supply of dairy products to shops when the major suppliers couldn’t get through.

But this year a plume of warm southerly air from the Canary Islands swept in and sent temperatures into the high teens. On Saturday the highest temperature reached was 17.6C, at both Kew Gardens, in west London, and Kinlochewe, in northern Scotland, the Met Office said, and a spokeswoman said the forecast for the coming days was “exceptionally mild and bright”.

This year in Scotland, early sightings of pale flesh have already been evident in the usual places. The ancient clash of culture and manners that divides Glasgow and Edinburgh often manifests itself in extreme weather conditions. In Edinburgh, winter is welcomed as an opportunity to break in the new skiing apparel. Winter seems to present a challenge to some Glaswegians who will attempt to see it out in shorts and T-shirts. Another few days of these temperatures will lead to a record early start to the now traditional “taps-aff” season when the merest glimpse of sunshine induces some west of Scotland men to cut about as if they were in Benidorm.

The Royal Horticultural Society is also getting excited. The society says the fine early weather is making for a fragrant spring south of the border, too. England’s favourite seasonal flowers have already taken to the catwalk, with witch hazel and honeysuckles getting an early outing following last summer’s sunshine and a mild winter.

The north-east of Scotland regularly delivers noteworthy temperatures at both ends of the scale. This February’s high numbers, according to climatologists, have come about from a phenomenon known as the Foehn effect which involves air warming as it moves up and over mountains.

On the Castle Esplanade on Saturday the market was slightly busier due to the warmer temperatures. As ever, though, the wind factor wasn’t far behind. Craig Kenny from Edinburgh, said: “We’ll always take decent weather in Scotland whenever it occurs, but, just a couple of weeks ago, all these stalls had to be shut because of the high winds, so you never really want to get ahead of yourself.”

A few yards away, Ceri Wallace was also expressing a measure of doubt about the unseasonably good weather. “You never want to complain, given that we were all snowed in this time last year,” she said. “But the coast is never far away wherever you are in Scotland and that means wind. But we’ll take it.”