Tuesday 3rd October
Thankfully, there was no fog to greet the new day on Monday leaving variable brightness and some fleeting sunshine that meant a high pf 10.2C at 13.32, being 0.1C below average. The wind was very brisk from the northeast that limited the rise in temperature. The past night produced a minimum of 4.1C at 06.39, before sunrise in Marlborough at 07.03, being exactly average for November.
Tuesday arrived with thin high cloud and weak sunshine trying to break through, but it is November and the sun has lost a lot of its strength at this time of year. The breeze is persisting from the northeast but not quite so strong as yesterday when a peak gust of 20mph was recorded.
The weather for the next few days will be under the control of the high pressure just to the north that although its orientation will change a little, elongating towards the Continent, the air stream will continue from around a northeasterly direction for several days, perhaps with a more easterly component from Wednesday. The anticyclone is keeping at bay any weather fronts from pushing across the country although the forecast pressure charts indicate a slight disturbance to the southwest, indicated by a trough on the chart, that is likely to mean more cloud on Wednesday and Thursday. The barometric pressure at 08.00 read 1034.1mb, just 3mb down on the peak of yesterday.
The cooler November weather, brought by the change in wind direction due to the high pressure, can be seen in the temperature of the ground at a depth of 5cm, read daily at 08.00, with 9.7C, 7.6C, 6.7C and 5.1C respectively over the past consecutive days.
October 2026 Review
The bulk of the first week was mild with maximum and minimum temperatures well above the October average.
The very wet night and following day on the 6th gave us the wettest day since the end of August that began to refresh the very dry gardens and refill empty water buts.
It was all change on the 7th as the wind swung from the southwest to northwest that brought a much colder air stream and a very cool day with the maximum of just 12.9C, being 2C below average. Quite a shock to the system after so many very warm and hot days, the first sign that autumn was approaching.
The following night saw the thermometer drop away to 4.1C, that made it the coolest night since 16th May.
There were a few particularly warm days in the second week when maxima were well above the October average with a high of 20.2C on the 15th. This was due to a flow of air from the southwest that contained tropical air brought up from the south as ex-hurricane Isaias was incorporated into a depression in the Atlantic. The exceptionally deep depression gave storm force winds around Iceland where it became centred.
It was all change on the 16th as a cold front passed over the country that behind it brought cooler air on a north-westerly breeze. The weather front deposited a useful 3.8mm of rainfall during the early hours of the 16th.
The reign of high-pressure systems that gave us fine, dry days over so many months came to an end on the 20th as the jet stream changed its path. It began to push depressions across the Atlantic rather than arching above the UK that had allowed anticyclones to push north from around the Azores area.
We waited many months for a reasonable fall of rain, during the extremely dry summer months, then in early autumn three deep depressions queued up to visit us one after the other. Storm Austen arrived on the 23rd and ran along the English Channel that produced a daily rainfall total of 26.3mm, which made it the wettest day since 26th January 2025. The winds picked up in the afternoon with a peak gust of 32mph.
Storm Austen deepened as it approached the UK, undergoing a process known as explosive cyclogenesis. Its central pressure fell by over 24mb in 24 hours, making it what is sometimes called a ‘weather bomb’. On the evening of the 22nd my records show the pressure beginning to drop at the rate of 1mb/hr at 19.30 as the centre of the storm entered the English Channel. By 21.00 the rate had increased significantly to 4.1mb/hr, then 5.2mb/hr at 22.00 and at its peak I logged a drop of 6.3mb/hr at 23.30 with a minimum of 987.9mb at 06.23 early on the 23rd.
Both Storm Austen and Storm Boelo deepened rapidly as they approached the UK. I have analysed the local barometric pressure for both storms and found that over Marlborough the pressure dropped 22.6mb for Storm Austen and exactly 24mb for Storm Boelo. The details were 1010.5b to 987.9mb for Storm Austen and 1013.3mb to 989.3mb for Storm Boelo.
As a matter of interest, the centre of Storm Boelo measured 964mb at midnight when centred over Scotland, whilst the standard atmospheric pressure at sea level is 1013.25mb. The highest pressure for the UK was 1053.6mb at Aberdeen on 31st January 1902 and the lowest with 925.6mb at Ochtertyre, Perthshire, on 26th January 1884.
As the month came to an end the Azores high began pushing back over the UK acting as a barrier to any new weather fronts attempting to reach the country. It also resulted in much calmer conditions after the strong winds of last week, it also meant that at night, as the temperatures dropped, fog formed in the early hours of the 29th and 30th.
The monthly rainfall amounted to 129.9mm, being 143% of my 43-year record using the 5” Met Office standard copper rain gauge, or plus 39.1mm. The contrasting years were in 2017 with just 31.3mm and the very wet year of 2020 when 191mm fell locally. There is a quite clear, upward trend for increasing rainfall over that period showing an average of around 75mm in the 1980s and recently around 90mm.
Not surprisingly, the mean temperature for October was above average at + 1.1C, that was an almost identical figure for both the average maximum and average minimum.
As gardeners we are aware that the first frost of autumn can damage tender plants if not covered or removed. I have analysed my data back to 1984 and found, no surprise, that there is a clear, general trend for that event to occur later in the season. In the 1980s, taking the datum as 1st September, on average it occurred 35 days later, now in the 2020s it is occurring, on average, 55 days later. Naturally there are considerable variations such as in 2024 when the first air frost occurred on 11th October and in 2025 on 18th November. As I complete this review there are currently no signs of a frost during the first week of November.