Author: Eric Gilbert

Thursday brought us another gloomy, grey day with the cloud even thicker obscuring any possible sunshine and no UV registered. It was another dry day, the sixth this month, with again very little and. The anemometer was stationery for many hours with the one gust struggling to reach 8mph.

With the air mass coming in from a north easterly duration it was not surprising to find the maximum temperature was depressed with a peak of only 6.6C (-0.4C). Cloud cover overnight meant no air frost and an above average minimum of 4.6C (+3.5C).

Friday arrived just as Thursday and Wednesday – thick cloud and still air conditions as the anticyclonic gloom continues.

Wednesday saw the anticyclonic gloom arrive with the fog and mist from low cloud taking until almost noon to lift. The intense high-pressure is beginning to slip away allowing moist, warm air from the Atlantic to circulate clockwise around it as the very light breeze, maximum gust of 11mph, veered into the north east.The drizzle produced 0.4mm of precipitation.

The maximum of 7.4C (+0.4C) was just above the January average whilst the warmer air under the cloud cover meant a frost free night with a minimum of 3.4C (+2.3C). Sadly no sunshine after the previous glorious days.

Thursday saw the thick cloud persisting but the cloud base was a little higher.

After the mist had cleared on Tuesday morning the sun came out for 5.3 hours and the UV level, at 0.8, was the highest since the beginning of December.

The intense anticyclone edged a little westwards but still dominated our weather, not only dry and sunny but for many hours the anemometer remained stationary with one maximum gust of just 5mph.

During Tuesday evening the thermometer initially went below zero at 18.55, for almost four hours, but as cloud encroached the temperature recovered above freezing at 22.52.

Wednesday morning saw thick fog replacing the blue skies with visibility reduced to 100m as thick cloud and moist air had drifted. The air is circulating around the high pressure bringing moist and warmer air from the Atlantic.

The maximum on Tuesday was 6.6C, just below average, whereas initially the thermometer dropped to -1.2C around 21.00 last night before recovering to 3.4C at 08.00 on Wednesday.

The clear blue skies and sunshine (4.8 hours) on Monday continued under the influence of the intense high pressure. The daytime temperature slowly rose just above average with a maximum of 7.4C but there followed the coldest night of the winter with a minimum of -3.7C just before dawn on Tuesday under clear skies as there was no duvet of cloud to minimise the loss of residual warmth into the atmosphere.

The calm conditions continued with hours of calm and a maximum lone gust of 10mph. The UV level was again giving a peak of 0.7, the highest this month

Dawn on Tuesday saw variable fog combined with the hard frost but there was evidence of the sun trying to break through.

The barometer edged higher again on Sunday as the centre of the anticyclone drifted closer to the UK, just off the Cornish coast, with a maximum of 1049.6mb at 00.17 early Monday morning. This was the highest pressure since my station began in 1984 and close to the UK record of 1053.6mb set in 1902.

The temperatures were depressed due to the air mass coming from the north west but very little movement, a peak of just 9mph was recorded. The maximum of 5.8C was 1.2C below average and another air frost occurred overnight with a minimum of -2.7C being 3.8C below the 35-year average.

Monday arrived with broken cloud and still wind conditions.

We have now had two consecutive days without rain, the first this month, and with the barometric pressure maintaining its strength there are likely to be more dry days this week.