12th January 1987

Jersey is hit by extreme weather

January 12th is notable as a day of extreme weather in Jersey. Although not the date on which the coldest ever temperature was recorded across the island, locals did experience the lowest daytime temperature on that day, at -6.1° Celsius (21° Fahrenheit). Ten years later, the same date in 1997 marked the end of 10 days without any sunshine, which is remarkable as Jersey regularly sets sunshine records, with an average of 2.3 hours of sunshine every day in January, or more than 71 hours in total over the course of the month.

Snow closes the airport

In 1979, 12 January saw Jersey clearing up after a ferocious storm. Jersey Airport had been closed by snow for the first time in more than 15 years the previous week when 60 mile an hour winds swept through in a series of blizzards.