Given the cold snap in the final days of January, it may comes as a surprise that the average temperature was slightly above average.

However, it really was a month of two halves as the year began with grey, dry and settled conditions but with mild temperatures, before the cold weather set in.

The Met Office has released the monthly weather report which shows that January had an average temperature of 6.4°C, which it said was a little above the long term average.

The coldest day was January 31, when the temperature reached a maximum of 3.6°C, and saw a minimum in the morning of minus 2.5°C.

It was also a very dry month with only 37.9mm of rainfall, less than half the long term average for the month, and the driest January since 1997.

The start of the month was very dry with nearly a quarter of the month’s rain falling in one day. January 26 saw 10.7mm fall in 24 hours.

While there was no thunder or fog, the island did see three days where sleet, snow or hail. And there were three days with air frosts and a further 10 with ground frosts.

It wasn’t very windy -the average wind speed for the month was just 12 knots.

There was only one day with gales, January 27.

A peak gust of 59 mph was recorded at Ronaldsway.

A sunnier second half of the month meant there was a total of 50.9 hours of sunshine recorded at Ronaldsway, which is about average.

The sunniest day was, January 17 with 5.7 hours on the card.