Category: Commentary

An anticyclone has settled over Scotland and continues to produce a northeasterly breeze, which is a cool direction. The cool airstream meant the maximum on Saturday was just 6.7C being 1.4C below the average. An air frost occurred overnight as the thermometer dropped to -0.5C, which was 2.1C below average.

The UV peak reading of 1.9 was the highest since October, but still in the ‘Low’ category.

Sunday arrived with glorious sunshine that lifted the temperature to 1.6C at 08.00 with the barometric pressure rising significantly over the past twenty-four hours due to the closeness of the anticyclone, with a reading of 1026.8mb at 0800, the highest for a week.

The airstream on Friday veered into the northeast, not seen for a month. The air from this direction is cooler although the thermometer did reach 9.7C initially before falling back in the afternoon. Overnight the temperature dropped to 0.8C producing a ground frost and being 0.8C below the average.

There were a couple of very light showers of drizzle that amounted to 0.7mm taking the monthly total to 12.1mm when the average for February is 67.2mm.

Saturday arrived with a little brightness but this was soon muted by a large are of cloud arriving on the northeasterly breeze. The shift in wind direction is due to the anticyclone migrating just off the Scottish north coast, which as the air rotates clockwise, produces the wind from the northeast.

The wind from the north and north-northeast on Thursday was strong gusting to 25mph at its peak. This cool airstream meant a cool day with the thermometer not rising above 6.5C, which was the coolest day this month being 1.5C below the average. The strong wind and low temperatures meant there was a wind chill making it feel outside at 08.00 more like 2C when the thermometer read 4.7C.

The skies initially cleared in the evening allowing the temperature to drop steadily reaching a minimum of -2.6C, giving a sharp air frost at 01.09 in the early hairs of Friday then rising before dawn to reach 1.7C at 08.00.

Brief brightness was observed after dawn on Friday but this quickly changed as cloud soon drifted in with total cloud cover by 07.45.

Brief showers in the early morning on Wednesday and again on Thursday produced 5.6mm of rainfall making it the wettest day since 13th January. That took the February total to 11.4mm, far below the 39-year average of 67.2mm.

After a warm day on Wednesday with the wind from the west, the thermometer reached 10.2C being 2.2C above the average. Overnight the wind veered into the north and north-northeast that brought the temperature down to a minimum of 3.5C just after midnight at 00.05, by 08.00 that had recovered to 4.7C.

Thursday at first light revealed steady rain and the colder northerly wind gusting to 23mph, that meant a wind chill so outside it felt more like 2C than 4.7C.

The thick, low cloud brought moist air hanging about all morning, draping the hills, until 14.20 when a clearance arrived and modest sunshine lifted the temperature 9.7C being 1.7C above the average. Incidentally, only one day in February, the 8th, had a maximum below the average.

Rain showers triggered the automatic rain gauge at 00.15 Wednesday bringing 3.3mm of rainfall. This was the wettest day since 15th January (4.0mm) and took the monthly total to 5.8mm well, below the 39-year average of 67.2mm.

Wednesday at first light revealed the back edge of the weather front, low, thick cloud, with light rain falling until 07.40, followed by light drizzle.

The barometric pressure at 07.30 read 1011.0mb, the lowest pressure at that time since 19th January.