IS spring coming early to Worcester?

A new year has only just begun plants are already blooming all around us in the city – something our readers have been quick to spot.

One of them, Caroline Bradley, even saw a beautiful red admiral butterfly pausing for a rest on her roof!

Nicky Handley said: "A few days before Christmas I noticed something was eating away at the raspberry bush. I turned over a half-eaten leaf to find it covered in green fly!"

Rita O'Reilly said: "I have rhubarb growing, and picked a rose just one week ago."

Patricia Sherriff: "We have bluebells, daffodils, fuchias, two rose bushes that have not stopped blooming, and I noticed yesterday that we have lilies just coming up."

Lynski Smiley said: "Everything – daffs, clamatis – thinks it's spring."

It looks as though the UK is on track to break the record for the warmest December since records began in 1910 and some areas have also seen their wettest.

Temperatures so far for December show the month has been far warmer than normal.

Provisional figures have the mean temperature for December in the UK at 8.1C, which is 4.2C above the average for the month of 3.9C.

Tim Legg, of the Met Office National Climate Information Centre, said: “We’re on track to break the warmest December record of 6.9C, which was set back in 1934.”