The year of 2011 saw record breaking heat waves send- ing beach lovers flocking to Weymouth – but not in the summer.

Rainfall for the months of June, July and August was a whopping 41 per cent above average, with August being recorded as the wettest since 1997. One day – August 17 – saw 26.7mm of rainfall, the wettest day of the year.

In May residents in Portland and Weymouth thought they were being hit by a tornado during a dramatic thunderstorm.

But it turned out to be a very rare roll cloud which had broken away from a thunderstorm at around 7.30pm on Friday night.

During the same storm Echo reader Justin Turner captured a dramatic image of lightning from the top of Portland.

In November, the Echo reported that Weymouth and Portland Borough Council estimated the summer’s dire weather to have cost them £22,732 in deck chair hire and use of the land train.

But splashes of sunshine in unseasonable April and an Indian summer in October made up for the dreary months in between.

Businesses boomed as hordes headed for the beach at weekends when Weymouth beach was recorded as being hotter than the Sahara, hitting a sizzling 26C on April 24, making it the hottest Easter since 1984.

The Moroccan city of Merzouga in the Sahara desert was 25C.

And October smashed temperature records by hitting 23.2C, again on Weymouth beach, the highest temperature seen in the month since records began in 1880. With the town’s beach hotter than the Costa Del Sol, many families chose a Dorset holiday for half-term.

Despite the summer rain, and bouts of torrential rain in December, with 14.5mm of rain falling in a single night, the year has been a dry one.

And over Christmas a tornado struck.

Farmer David Trott was forced to run for cover with his wife and six-year-old grandson when the twister hit.

Mr Trott was shocked by the freak weather event at Kiddles Farm at Piddletrenthide that left a barn where he houses cattle missing a large section of roof.

He described debris being picked up and smashed 150 yards away while the three of them cowered in a doorway.

Weymouth weatherman Bob Poots said: “We have been down on rainfall, but it seems to have caught up to its normal levels during December.”

So much so, in fact, that fire officers in Maiden Newton spent an evening pumping water away from homes to keep flooding at bay in the middle of the month.

November also broke records, maintaining the warmest average temperature since records began. With minimum temperatures at just 10.2C, the month was a balmy improvement on 2010’s glacial winter wonderland.

December’s figures are still being collected, but Dorchester-based weatherman John Oliver is forecasting more record-breaking weather.

“December is on track to be the warmest since I started collecting statistics,” he said. “But it could be tight, because the temperature has dropped since the start of the month, so these last few days will be crucial.”

Mr Oliver celebrated his own record in August, marking the fiftieth year since he began noting the weather.

But while 2011 may seem to have got its seasons back-to-front, Mr Oliver stressed the pattern is nothing out of the ordinary.

He explained: “It’s all down to the position of the jet stream. During a good summer it tends to flow over Scotland, but this year it has been further south.

“But you can still get nice spring or autumn weather, or both, like this year.”

And while sun worshippers may already be counting the days until the weather improves, they will have to wait a while yet.

According to the Met Office, there are still another two months of winter to endure.

The 2012 forecast makes typical reading: more rain and more wind.

But, shorter cold spells aside, the temperature is set to remain relatively warm throughout January and into February.