The reason for that Ian is that Anglesey , Lytham, and Ullapool in Scotland are in the path of the Gulf Stream which tends to bring warm air and milder conditions generally. They even have palm trees in Ullapool!
Yeaph, your right Mike. It didn't feel any warmer on Anglesey to me though...Gulf stream or not
. We often had hard frosts during the winter and a few thick 'ish samples of snow on occasion. When it was freezing and we had the high winds it was really cold and you had to either keep your hands in your pockets or wear some decent gloves. The wind chills where nasty!
I did swim in the sea in summer but in winter the water was seriously cold, I know because I fell in off some rocks!
The winds often went over a hundred miles per hour and the Islanders never even batted an eyelid as those high winds where so frequent. You only need to look at the trees and hedgerows to see how windy the place is, they're all sort of petrified into a shape from the prevailing Westerly's.
When it was bad weather , it was bad, and that was pretty much all winter into April, but when it was good weather, it was glorious
. Anglesey is sort of a jekyll and Hyde type of place when it comes to it's weather patterns.
I forgot to mention the fogs that would roll in off the sea
you could watch them rolling in and they where so thick you could only see a few yards in front of you. Sometimes it was an eery feeling when the fog came it and you could hear the boats fog horns sounding off and see flashes from the lighthouses.