Category: Commentary

With just a light shower on Tuesday amounting to 0.5mm, it was almost a dry day with the 4.5 hours of sunshine raising the thermometer to 21.1C, however this was 1.6C below average.

The Azores high pressure is beginning to affect our weather as the pressure rises with the reading of 10194mb at 0800 on Wednesday that started with brilliant sunshine as soon as the sun rose above the horizon. Unlike previous days the sun kept on shining strongly raising the overnight minimum of 12.6C, 0.9C above average, to 17.2C at 0800 making it the warmest start to a day at that time since 14th June.

Monday saw the very light wind coming initially from the northeast but during the day it came from the east, northwest and west and back to northeast. After a wet start to the day, when 4.5mm of rain was recored, the sun came out mid-morning for 5.8 hours that lifted the thermometer to a peak of 21.6C but this was 1C below average.

Overnight was mild with a temperature no lower than 13.8C being 2C above average.

Tuesday arrived with a little brightness after dawn through the mist but low, thick cloud drifted across just before 0700 with the wind coming from the north.

With the depression centred off the Bay of Biscay, and getting closer on Sunday, it was not surprising to see more cloud and more rain. The thermometer struggled to reach a peak of 17.6C exactly as on Saturday and 5C below the average.

Showers began again at 1615 on Sunday and occurred overnight amounting to 4.9mm during a mild night with a minimum of 13.1c (+1.2C).

There was a lull in the showers around dawn but another large area of rain arrived at 0730 on Monday, so no sunshine fo the early morning.

The slack low pressure of recent days has meant calm days with little wind as maximum gusts were often only in single figures. Sunday the anemometer rose to a peak gust of 12mph.

Rain persisted for much of the daylight hours on Saturday, ceasing for a couple of hours mid-afternoon. The daily rainfall total was 4.0mm bringing the monthly total to 22.1mm when the average is 59.6mm.

Due to the thick cloud and rain temperatures by day were depressed with the thermometer only rising to 17.6C being 5C below average.

Although it was a cloudy night it was a below average minimum (-1.1C) with a low of 10.7C.

Fog formed overnight that at dawn limited visibility to 200m at 0630. However, by 0645 the fog had totally evaporated with maximum visibility returned and strong sunshine. But by 0705 the cloud had returned when fog returned reducing visibility to 500m and obscuring any further sunshine.

During the 8.8 hours of sunshine on Friday the thermometer rose to 22.2C. However, this was 0.5C below the 37-year average as have all but two days in July.

It was dry by day but after an overnight minimum of 11.7C, average for July, rain began to fall again at 0730 from low, thick cloud on Saturday as a small depression travelled along the English Channel.

The barometric pressure fell to 1017.0mb on Saturday at 0800 as the depression passed along the English Channel overcoming the ridge of high pressure that dampened out the showers on Thursday and Friday.