Author: Eric Gilbert

The worst of ex-hurricane Gonzalo passed Marlborough by.

There was no precipitation during daylight hours today with just 2.1mm over the past twenty-four hours.

A maximum wind gust of 38mph occurred at 1346. There were frequent gusts for several hours in excess of 30mph.

Just before 1400 the temperature began to fall from a maximum of 12.8C to 11C as the wind continued to veer from a southwesterly direction to a cooler northwesterly.

The wind strength over this period gave a wind chill of 9C.

Barometric pressure started to rise rapidly from a low of 1001mb just before 0700 as the centre of the depression began to move away. At 1800 the reading was 1015mb.

With no showery activity there was a total of 4.83 hours of direct sunshine, the highest total for 11 days.

The 19th was the first dry day after 15 consecutive days with rainfall and also proved to be very warm with a maximum of 18.3C, which is 4C. above the 30-year average.

The minimum temperature overnight was 15.8C making it the warmest night since 5th September.

Another 10.7mm of rain fell in the past 24 hours bringing the total this month so far to 83.2mm, which is very close to the 30-year average for October. The last two years have seen very wet Octobers with 135mm and 121mm in 2013 and 2012 respectively. The total rainfall for 2014 to date is 911mm making it the fifth wettest year on record with the rest of October, then November and December, which can only increase the annual amount for this year.

At the start of the week maximum temperatures only just made double figures, at 11C, but the southerly winds over the last two days have increased the peak temperatures by 6C to 17.5C today, 3C above the long-term average. The very low minimums this week, of 2C, have also recovered to 10C, which is 3C above the long-term average.
The rainfall over the last five days amounted to 34.5mm bringing the total for the month to 72.5mm, which is 82% of the long-term average with two weeks of the month still ahead.