February was "a month of two halves" as Britain was battered by wintry weather followed by a two-week mild spell, meteorologists have said.
MeteoGroup, the weather division of the Press Association, released figures for February, which began with parts of the South East seeing the heaviest snowfall for 18 years.
The cold snap lasted until around the middle of the month when it was "almost exactly offset" by warmer weather, said the forecasting service.
Forecaster Julian Mayes said: "Although we remember the cold first two weeks, and there's no doubting the effect that had, it was actually followed by the mild second half of the month. In a way if you blend that together you get quite an average month, although it was a month of two halves."
However, England and Wales enjoyed only 64 hours of sunshine, the lowest in February since 1994. Scotland had 53 hours and Northern Ireland 62. The sunniest place was Eastbourne in Sussex with 78 hours, and the lowest in Kirkwall, Orkney with only 29.
Some western areas had the driest February since 1986, with the lowest monthly totals at 7mm in Valley, Anglesey and 12mm in Crosby, near Liverpool. The wettest place was Princetown, Devon with 186mm of rain, 114m of which fell in two days over February 8 and 9.
Forecasters used data from 1971 to 2000 to calculate average rainfall and temperatures. England and Wales had less rainfall than normal, 54mm which is 81% of the average, while Scotland had 52mm, equivalent to 83% of its average. Northern Ireland's rainfall was 41mm, 74 per cent of its average.
In terms of temperature, Kent claimed the highest, with Canterbury reaching 16.9C on the 27th. The lowest was minus 18.4C at Aviemore, Inverness-shire overnight from February 8 to 9.
Mr Mayes warned the cold weather will return next week. "It's going to start to feel cold again. I don't think it's going to be a deep freeze but because it's going to be unsettled people are going to notice it," he said.
Read More
"This very quiet weather that we've had is coming to an end. We seem to be in a period where we get a fortnight of one type of weather and maybe a fortnight of another. We will have to wait and see what the middle of March will bring."
