Tuesday 31st March
Monday brought us sunshine but it was variable between clouds scudding across the sky, driven on by a brisk and at times very gusty northwesterly breeze. However, the sunshine is getting stronger that resulted in the thermometer climbing to a maximum of 13.4C at 15.11, being 2.6C above average. Stratocumulus cloud drifted in during the evening and overnight that again limited the loss of warmth into the atmosphere, resulting in a minimum of 6.8C at 02.02, very early on Tuesday morning, which was 4.2C above average.
The other indication that the sun is getting stronger was a peak UV of 3.8, the highest value since 19th September, putting it well into the “Moderate” category.
The start to Tuesday was cloudy and is likely to continue that way for most of the day with little brightness and probably no sunshine as the cloud radar first thing showed a blanket of cloud covering much of southern England.
The ridge of high pressure built over the past twenty-four hours and continues to resist the forward movement of weather fronts that are over Scotland. The barometric pressure at 08.00 read 1030.5mb, up 7mb since Monday, and the second highest pressure this month. However, the wind coming from the west-northwest continues to feed in an air stream that is full of moisture having travelled over the sea to reach the UK, hence the persistent cloud cover.
The ridge of high pressure will be with us until probably Thursday that will continue the settled weather, if cloudy, when a deep low pressure system will then arrive to the northwest, from the Atlantic, which will probably dominate our weather towards the Easter weekend. The forecast is uncertain at this point but indications are that the weather is likely to become unsettled over Easter.