Author: Eric Gilbert

With the daily maxima slowly falling away over the last four days it feels more like early autumn, which although not by the calendar is meteorologically. The maxima since 3rd have been 20.1C, 18.3C, 17.6C and 17.3C on Friday, the latter being 1.3C below average.

There were a couple of light showers on Friday amounting to 1.0mm. This brings the September total 3.6mm being exceeded by evaporation equivalent to 14mm of rainfall.

Friday night into Saturday was anther cool night with a minimum of 8.3C being 0.9C blow average.

Saturday arrived with a mainly cloudy sky with a few brief bright periods and very light winds.

With wind veering into the north west on Thursday bringing cooler air, meteorologically called Polar Maritime from that direction, it was not surprising that it felt cooler, which was confirmed by a below average maximum of 17.6C (-1.0C) in a brisk wind.

It was another dry day with the UV level again in the ‘High’ category.

The past night was very cool with the thermometer sinking to 7.5C at 01.39 Friday morning, which was 1.7C below average and 3.3C below the Thursday minimum. The advance cloud from a weak weather front then meant the temperature recovered a little to give a temperature of 11.4C at 08.00.

Friday dawned with thick cloud and rain drops just before 06.30 and again just before 08.00, but not sufficient to be measurable, recorded as a ‘trace’.

The wind, having veered from the warmer south westerlies into the west on Wednesday, meant a below average day, just, with a maximum of 18.3C (-0.3C) and the coolest day this month. The wind was strong all day with a peak gust of 23mph.

It was dry day until early evening when a short shower brought 0.2mm of rainfall. The monthly rainfall total currently stands at 2.6mm with evaporation exceeding that with the loss of 10mm of equivalent rainfall.

A mild night followed with the thermometer not falling below 10.8C (+1.6C).

Thursday initially saw weak sunshine through breaks in the cloud in the eastern sky but by 08.00 the sun was shining brightly.

The barometric pressure has been rising for the past twenty-hours so more dry, bright weather is probable.

Both the maximum of 20.1C (+1.5) and minimum 14.3C (+5.1C) were above average on Tuesday, and overnight, due to the moist, mild Atlantic air brought on the south westerly air flow.

It was a dry day with rain beginning to fall after midnight for a couple of hours amounting to 2.6mm, which made it the wettest day since 16th August.

Cloud from the overnight weather front meant no sunshine at dawn but as the cloud, associated with the overnight weather front, eased away to the east the sun began to break through just before 08.00.

The slight change in wind direction, backing from north west to west meant a slightly warmer day on Monday than Sunday although we had less sunshine with 7.5 hours.

The temperature peaked at 19.7C being 1C above average and with more cloud overnight it meant a mild night with a minimum of 13.2C, which was 4C above average and 8C warmer than the previous very cool night.

There was slight drizzle in the early hours of Tuesday that was not sufficient to measure hence recorded as a trace.

Tuesday arrived with hazy sunshine through a mainly cloudy sky.

August 2019 Review
After a dry start to the month rain set in from the 6th with several very wet days. Daily totals of 14.6mm, 10.4mm and 28.1mm were recorded on the 8th, 14th and 16th respectively. There were just 14 dry days.

The total rainfall for August was 81.8mm, which was 14.9mm above average and the wettest August since 2015. The contrasting months since this station was set up in 1984 were 139.5mm in 1992 and just 5.3mm in 1995.

To offset the rainfall, the equivalent loss of rainfall through evaporation from ground sources and plant life totalled 82.3mm, just exceeding the rainfall being 9mm above the 11-year average.

The mean temperature for August was 0.8C above the 35-year average with notably hot days toward the end of the month. During the four days from the 24th to the 27th each exceeded 28C (82F) with a peak of 30.7C (87F) on the 25th.

Solar energy was 102% of the 11-year average.

Summer 2019 Review
The three months of meteorological summer, June to August, gave a mean temperature 0.7C above the 35-year average.

Rainfall was 203.1mm, which was the wettest since 2012 and 23mm above the 35-year average. The wettest summer was in 2012 with 328mm contrasted by just 53mm in 1995.

Evaporation totalled 276mm, which was 73mm above the rainfall total