Author: Eric Gilbert

The peak air temperature during daylight hours yesterday was 2.6C. A slight rise during the early evening brought this up to 3.8C.
Late evening the temperature dropped a degree and wet snow briefly fell around 2215 hours, which quickly melted as the precipitation turned to rain giving a daily total of 5.7mm.

On monday 19th the thermometer eventually managed to reach 3.3C but as sunset approached it dropped steadily until around 11.00pm when the lowest temperature was registered at -4.9C. Thereafter a slight rise to -3C was maintained until dawn when it dropped a degree.
The almost continuous direct sunshine totalled 6.62 hours, which surprisingly, was the highest daily total since the end of September 2014.
The soil temperature at a depth of 5cm has fallen for three days and is now just above freezing at +0.2C.

Yesterday the thermometer struggled to briefly reach a maximum of 3.7C, which was the coldest day since January 30th 2014, when the average temperature for January is 6.3C.
The 4.8 hours of direct sunshine also produced the greatest quantity of solar energy since 18th November.
In addition the 18th was only the second completely dry day this month.

Yesterday was the first totally dry day this month, the 4th brought a light shower amounting to 0.1mm. With the lightest winds in January it was not surprising that, combined with cooler air behind a cold front, it was the coldest night since the end of January with a minimum of -2.2C over open ground just after 0300.
As the cloud cover arrived a short shower of snow grains was noted for a few minutes at 0730.

After a rapid fall in barometric pressure over 12 hours yesterday the lowest pressure registered was 984.7mb just after 0200 this morning.
The intense depression also brought extremely heavy rainfall between 0130 and 0300 producing a daily total of 16.2mm, which is the highest daily total since September 18th 2014. Half way through January the monthly total for rainfall is now 76mm, which is 83% of the long-term average for the whole month.
A peak wind gust was measured at 40mph during the evening.