Monday 15th December
The drift of warm and moist air continued on Sunday that allowed the temperature to reach a maximum of 10.6C at 12.51 thanks to weak morning sunshine that began to disappear as cloud built up just after midday. The high was 3.1C above average.The lowest temperature in the past twenty-four hours was at 08.00 on Sunday as after that time the temperature slowly rose, hovering around 9.6C for much of the day and reaching 9.9C at 8.00 Monday. The long and extensive rain band on Sunday and overnight travelled northeast just to the west of our area, at its closest just ten miles to the west, thus sparing us many hours of heavy rainfall.
Monday began dull and gloomy thanks to the thick cloud cover associated with the rain band that is very close, producing considerable rainfall over Wales and the West Country. There is the possibility of light rain later in the afternoon. The barometric pressure had fallen to 1004.8mb by 08.00, thanks to the recent high pressure having deserted us, now well over the eastern Mediterranean, and the depression near Iceland beginning to dominate our weather for today.
Another minor ridge of high pressure is likely to push up across the country on Tuesday into Wednesday that should allow some sunshine to arrive. However, it will result in clearing skies on Tuesday night that will allow the temperature to drop away to close too or just below freezing again. Towards the end of the week another depression will arrive to the northwest bringing unsettled weather and rain again.