Author: Eric Gilbert

With little strong sunshine (0.11 hours) and the air mass changing from Continental to Atlantic, the maximum yesterday was 21.7C, just below the mean, and the coolest day since the 15th. Late afternoon the cloud thickened and light drizzle fell intermittently amounting to 1.0mm.

Another dry day yesterday with over 7 hours of strong sunshine. Due to the many dry days and strong sunshine this month the evaporation from plant life, the ground and water surfaces is now 72mm whereas rainfall is just 10mm. The maximum yesterday was again above the mean at 25.6C, the eight consecutive above mean day. The minimum overnight was close to the mean at 12.7C.

After falling day by day for six days, the maximum yesterday rose well above the mean to a peak of 26.5C, which is 4C above the long-term mean. We enjoyed 5.33 hours of strong sunshine with the UV level still in the ‘very high’ category. The past night was a little cooler with a minimum of 11.1C around dawn but strong sunshine thereafter pushed the thermometer to 18.4C at 08.00, a very warm start to the day.

Variable cloud meant reduced strong sunshine yesterday (4.08 hours) but the thermometer did rise to a maximum of 23.3C, which is 1C above the mean. Late evening there was a very light shower amounting to 0.2C, the first rainfall after five dry days. The total rainfall for July is now only 10.6mm, which is 17% of the July mean. There followed another warm night with the minimum of 14.7C that is 3C above the mean.

After the extreme heat of tuesday, with a maximum of 31.9C, yesterday the thermometer peaked at 27.3C but began to fall during the late afternoon as the wind veered from the the southeast to the west. The past night was 8C cooler with a minimum of 12.5C, close to the meanfor July. The extreme heat and sunshine meant that the last two days has seen the equivalent of over 10mm of rainfall evaporate into the atmosphere. The total rainfall for July to date is 10.4mm when the mean is 61.0mm. The ground is still holding much of the heat as at 08.00 today the soil temperature at a depth of 5cm was 19.9C.