After the arctic blast on Wednesday, both day and night, the slight shift in wind direction from north to northwest meant a slightly warmer day yesterday with a maximum of 10.6C, but this was still 3C below the average. Sadly, the intense and lengthy cold meant my rhododendrons and apple blossom were very badly affected. There was a little sunshine between the heavy clouds and a couple of light showers amounting to 0.6mm, which brings the total to 6.1mm for April, the third driest I have recorded since 1984 when the thirty-three year average is 59.7mm. Overnight the cloud cover meant that the thermometer did not drop below 4.8C. This morning broke with continuous cloud cover that has the promise of breaking as the day progresses with the thermometer recovering to 7.0C at 08.00. It has been a month when only two days have not registered strong sunshine, if minimal, with a total of 148 hours to date.
The weather station of Marlborough, Wiltshire
