Thursday 29th October
The sun was very warm on Wednesday morning that resulted in a high of 14.7C at 12.05, which was almost exactly average for late October, before the cloud built up in the early afternoon. The breeze dropped out entirely just after 23.00, that allowed the temperature to fall to a low of 7.0C at 07.06 early Thursday. The lack of wind and low temperature, combined with recent rainfall that had raised the humidity, resulted in fog forming in the early hours. The radar in the evening, before the fog formed, indicated patches of low cloud drifting across southern England that produced a little light drizzle.
The fog was thick at dawn on Thursday that initially restricted visibility to 100m at first light, but by 07.00 it was beginning to thin noticeably and move away with little remaining by 08.00, by which time the very low cloud gave misty conditions over the tops of Savernake Forest and the Marlborough Downs.
The high pressure is now firmly in control over the UK that means little air movement and fine dry days with the strong likelihood of fog forming again during the early hours of the next day or two. The position of the anticyclone has resulted in a significant change in direction in the air movement, backing from southwest of recent days to come from the southeast today. The barometric pressure at 08.00 read 1029.1mb, the highest for ten days.
By Sunday the forecast pressure charts indicate that our recent high pressure system will edge eastwards over the near Continent, Belgium and Holland, and give way to a larger Azores just to the west of the UK. This will result in the wind coming around its northern flank and descending down across the country from a more northerly direction, which will mean a drop in temperature, feeling much cooler – but by then it will be November when the average temperature drops close to 10C.
Looking further ahead, the forecast charts indicate that the Azores high is likely to dominate our weather for much of next week with little evidence of substantial further rain.