Category: Commentary

The thermometer struggled to reach a maximum of 6.7C on Sunday being 3.8C below the 38-year average and made it the coldest day since 25th of January. The brisk wind from the northeast, gusting at its peak to 26mph, produced a wind chill for the second day that meant outside it felt at least 2C cooler than that indicated on a thermometer.

The past night has been cool with the thermometer dropping to 0.3C at 03.49 on Monday.

Monday at first brought brief breaks in the cloud that allowed very brief spells of brightness but not strong sunshine.

The barometric pressure is beginning to drop as the centre of the anticyclone, currently over Northern England, migrates to Denmark that will mean the wind veers a little further to come from the east and east-southeast.

The thermometer only rose to 7.0C on Saturday at 15.19 being 3.5C below average and the coldest day since 25th January. The wind from the north increased in strength during the morning, with a peak gust of 29mph, so that at 13.00 whilst the thermometer read 6.3C it felt more like 3C outside.

There were a couple of spots of rain in the wind in the afternoon and a little heavier early morning on Sunday amounting to 0.8mm.

The barometric pressure has risen to 1029.9mb by 08.00 on Sunday with the anticyclone easing from Northern Ireland to around the Edinburgh area at noon today so the wind currently coming from the northeast will veer into the east-northeast after midday.

Once again a new day was greeted with total cloud cover as the persistent weather front that plagued the area on the 3rd and 4th migrated back eastwards to our area.

A little sunshine broke through on Friday after 13.00 but the brisk breeze from the Northwest, gusting to 19mph, pegged back the temperature. The maximum by day was 9.6C being 0.9C below average and a low overnight of 2.3C at 00.42 on Saturday was almost exactly average.

It was a dry day with the UV level of 1.8 still in the ‘Low’ category thanks to a lack of sunshine.

Saturday revealed itself to be a repeat of Friday with total cloud cover as the weather front that took two days to slowly move eastwards has edged back westwards to cover our area. The wind has backed a few degrees and now coming from the north, so another cool day in prospect.

Thursday produced another dull, cloudy and gloomy day with continuous thick cloud and light rain and drizzle from time to time amounting to 1.4mm.

The thermometer rose to 10.8C, just above the average but dropped away overnight to 4.4C at 05.48 on Friday due to a change in wind direction. Just after midnight the wind direction changed from being southeast for most of Thursday to north.

Friday dawned with little change in the weather pattern, still total cloud cover and quite fresh with wind backing slightly into the northwest.

Wednesday was much as Tuesday with low cloud and light rain or drizzle amounting to 3.1mm. Again the thermometer did don’t rise above the average with a maximum of only 7.4C being 3.1C below the 38-year average.

The overnight minimum of 5.3C was above average (+1.9C) due to the continuing cloud cover.

The diurnal range of temperature, variation between day and night extremes, was just 2.1C due to the thick cloud cover.

Thursday dawned slowly under the low, thick cloud that once again draped the Marlborough Downs and Savernake Forest limiting visibility to around 1,500m. The temperature had lifted slightly by 08.00 to 6.1C. The barometric pressure has been slowly ebbing away and at 08.00 read 1013.7mb, a drop of 7mb since this the yesterday.