With sunshine and showers and the coolest day since 19th June it felt like Autumn in the modest north-westerly breeze. The thermometer struggled to reach a peak of 14.6C, which was 2.1C below average.
Showers early Thursday amounted to 0.8mm that brought the monthly total to 59.3mm, just 2.7mm below the 37-year average.
The past night was distinctly cool with the minimum of 6.0C being 3.1C below average.
Thursday arrived overcast and light rain with the wind having backed into the southwest.
Monday gave us 4.3 hours of sunshine and a maximum of 17.8C, just 0.9C below average but further rain arrived in the nature of showers and more consistent and east rain late evening that produced 20.5mm of rain. That was the wettest twenty-four hours since 3rd October 2020 (49.9mm).
The barometric pressure has been building in the past two days producing a transient ridge of high pressure. As a result skies cleared overnight leading to a very cool night with the thermometer falling to 6.2C being 2.9C below average. The wind direction, having been from the south all day, veered into the west late evening.
Tuesday arrived with glorious sunshine after sunrise. The soil temperature at 08.00 read 9.8C, a drop of some 10C since the beginning of the month and the lowest since 14th May. The wind direction has now veered a little further and currently coming from the west-northwest.
The maximum of 17.2C on Monday was 1.5C below average and the coolest day since 31st August as a result of the cold front bringing a much cooler air stream. The warm air from the Azores is just a memory from last week.
We enjoyed the sunshine between the showers, which at times were heavy with a daily total of 4.3mm.
The past night was also cool with a minimum of 8.2C being 0.9C below average.
Tuesday dawned with rain from a totally cloudy sky, not from showers as on Monday.
The very warm sunshine on Sunday, totalling 6.7 hours, saw the thermometer rise to 22.1C being 3.4C above average as the drift of warm air from the Azores continued.
The warm air was present overnight with the thermometer not dropping below 15.9C until the arrival of the the cold front. This brought a little rain at 02.00 but the main rain band arrived minutes after 05.00 for 2.5 hours, very heavy at 07.05. The rainfall amounted to 10.7mm bringing the monthly total to 33.7mm. As the back edge of the cold front cleared to the east, bringing clear skies, the thermometer promptly dropped 4C and the wind veered into the west.
Due to the many dry, warm days there has been an equivalent loss of 44mm of rainfall due to evaporation from the ground and plant life.
The minimal wind speeds we have seen all week continued on Saturday with a peak gust of just 13mph.The sunshine was minimal at 0.8 hours with the temperature down on the high of Friday with a maximum of 19.8C, which was 1.1C above the 37-year average.
There were a few spots of rain at 16.35, more to the south of Marlborough.
Another mild night with the lowest temperature at 12.8C being 3.7C above the average.
Sunday arrived with variable fog from 400m to 1500m but by 08.00 it had all but evaporated.
The weather is on the change with the barometric pressure having fallen steadily over the past six days from 1032mb to 1011mb at 08.00.