Friday was the sunniest day since the 25th with 5.6 hours of strong sunshine, especially late afternoon, that lifted the maximum to 21.2C, the warmest day since the 22nd being 0.5C above the 34-year August average.
A chilly night was to follow with a minimum of 7.9C.
Saturday day arrived with thick fog limiting visibility to 100m. As the sun grew in strength after dawn this slowly thinned so that by 08.00, when readings were taken, had lifted to give misty conditions with visibility raised to 1,500m.
Update at 18.15: southerly breeze brings warmer Continental air lifting maximum to 23.1C at 14.34 being 4.5C above the September average.
August Summary
The start of the month saw the continuation of the hot weather with a peak of 29.3C on the 5th and two days at 28.6C, on the 3rd and 6th respectively. Towards the end of August, we began to feel as if autumn was approaching as several chilly nights arrived, the coldest of which saw the thermometer fall to a minimum of 5.8C.
August gave us a summer month with 168 hours of strong sunshine, which was 60 hours above the average over the previous four years when this instrument was installed. There were 11 days when the UV level rose into the Very High category, the remaining days all registered as High except the damp, overcast day on the 26th when the UV was Low.
The equivalent rainfall lost to evaporation from ground sources and plant life was 81mm, which was 8mm greater than the 9-year average and exceeded rainfall by over 18mm.
The sunniest day occurred on the 5th with a total of 15.03 hours of strong sunshine, which triggers the sunshine recorder when the strength is greater than 100w/sq.m.
Unlike the two previous months rainfall was close to the average with a total of 62.5mm, just 4mm below the 34-year average. This total principally fell on three very wet days with 18.8mm, 13.0mm and 11.5mm on the 26th, 10th and 15th respectively. There were 16 totally dry days.
With so much sunshine it is not unexpected to find that the mean temperature was 0.8C above the average being the warmest August since 2004. The days were well above average (+1.1C) whereas the nights were much closer to the 34-year average (+0.4C).
As individuals we do have to adjust to our changing weather and August was no exception. The diurnal temperature for two particular days show that on the 5th there was a temperature variation of 19.7C whereas the 12th saw as little as 3.7C between day and night.
Summer 2018 Summary
The summer of 2018 was the 2nd warmest I have recorded since the station was set up in 1984. The record summer was in 2006.
Due to the very dry months of June and July, before the wet days of August occurred, the rainfall for the three months was just 93mm being 51% of the 34-year average.
The equivalent rainfall lost through evaporation over the summer totalled 318mm, which was 55mm greater than the 8-year average.
Sunshine for the three months totalled 652 hours, which was 74% above the average for the previous four years when the instrument was installed.