Category: Commentary

After a cloudy morning on Monday the cloud began to thin after 13.00 with breaks of welcome sunshine as the afternoon progressed. This late improvement was shown by the maximum temperature of 12.6C being the lowest for a week, but still 1.9C above the long-term average, and logged late in the afternoon at 17.01. The UV level usually maxes around midday, say 12.30 until next week after the hour changes, so a late peak of 2.7 at 13.47 was not surprising and back to the ‘Low’ category.

During the evening under clear skies, the warmth quickly dissipated into the atmosphere to produce a minimum of 3.3C that was reached at 22.00 with it hovering around that figure until just after 01.00. After this time, tracing back time on the cloud radar, showed light variable cloud descending from the northwest that then thickened and limited visibility to 500m after dawn. By 07.00 there was evidence of the sun having risen so by 07.30 the bulk of the moisture had melted away to leave misty conditions.

Tuesday saw welcome, strong sunshine after 07.30, that had lifted the thermometer to 6.9C by 08.00. However, sadly, the next couple hours will be the best part of the day as the radar shows an area of variable cloud bearing down on our region, just to the north of Swindon at 08.20, from the northwest with the outside chance of light precipitation. The cloud is associated with two weather fronts, a warm front followed quickly by a cold front, that will be over our area around midday, which will see the wind back into the northwest for much of the day.

I wonder if March 2024 will be the driest I have recorded since this station was set up in 1984? The total rainfall to date is just 5.2mm. Analysing my records I see that the driest March was in 2011 with just 12.7mm followed then by the second driest with 15.6mm in 1997. The anticyclone has thrown a ridge of high pressure over the UK that will minimise any precipitation today and is likely to mean the next few days will be dry.

Up to and including yesterday, there was a loss of equivalent rainfall through evaporation from ground sources and plant life, a total of 35.7mm, so to date there is a deficit of 30mm for this month.

Sunday gave us another above average day with a maximum of 14.8C at 13.26, being +4.1C, before the cloud thickened. This peak was exactly the same as logged on Saturday. A small area of thicker cloud crossed southern England in the middle of the afternoon, with light rain at 14.55 and another just before 21.00, amounting to 0.8mm. The past night was also above average at +3.0C logged at 06.34 early Monday.

Monday after dawn revealed a sky with total cloud cover that had drifted in from the North Sea and produced misty conditions.

The depression is giving way to the anticyclone in the eastern Atlantic that will begin to influence our weather later today as the wind, currently coming from the north-northeast, backs into the west later this afternoon. The forecast for the jet steam track over the next few days indicates that high pressure will dominate our weather for much of the coming week.

The Met Office have recently put out a press release that an employee has just completed a pioneering achievement to be the first person to complete an apprenticeship in Digital Accessibility in the world. They say that “Weather and climate information is important for everyone, playing a role in keeping people safe. Work in this area involves ensuring that information on all of our platforms such as website, app and social media, can be accessed and understood by the widest possible audience, regardless of whether people have a visual, hearing, speech, motor, cognitive or other combination of impairments.”

They go on to state that “The use of colour to convey information, is an example of an area that has been worked on.” Understanding how people see the identical colour differently “means that we should radically change how colour is used to convey information”.

The predominantly cloudy skies on Saturday, with occasional bright intervals, meant the maximum of 14.8C, logged at 13.40, made it the coolest day since the 18th, however, it was still significantly above average with +4.1C. Likewise, the past night was much cooler that saw the thermometer drop to 6.1C, logged at 06.17 before the sun got to work, which was also well above my long-term average with +3.4C.

Although much of southern England was under a large area of cloud on Sunday morning, there was a small hole of thin cloud over central southern England that gave us a very welcome sunny start to the new day. This boost of sunshine lifted the thermometer to 9.0C by 08.00. However, the radar shows a large bank of cloud quite close to southeastern Britain, with heavy showers and possible lightning, that might drift closer later this afternoon. There is a noticeable shift in wind direction today with the breeze having backed from the southeast over the past four days to come from the north, but thankfully light in strength.

France is not keeping the recent depression to itself, currently lurking over Brittany and still throwing banks of cloud over the UK and will likely dominate for much of Sunday. However, the outlook is for this low pressure system to slowly fill as a ridge of high pressure asserts itself on Tuesday. The barometric pressure has already started to slowly rise, up 3mb since yesterday.

The general view is that the soil temperature needs to be at a minimum of 7C or 8C before seeds in the soil can germinate. I think gardeners will begin to have thoughts of planting for the new season this coming week as the soil temperature at a depth of 6cm read at 08.00, was logged at 9.2C, 8.9C and 8.8C for the past three days respectively. The forecast for the coming few days is for it to be a little cooler but still above average by day also, at the moment, no overnight frosts are thought likely. I noticed this morning that a few sweet pea seeds that I planted optimistically some three weeks ago, in a sheltered small area, have started to throw the first shoots above ground.

Update at 08.45. The radar shows the cloud encroaching over our area from the north and southeast, an unusual scissors movement, with the sun now being blocked out.

I will include the daffodil image again as they are currently at their best but any heavy rain and strong winds will spoil them. Some of mine were close to the ground after the rain on Friday evening.

Friday brought variable cloud resulting in variable sunshine that combined with a brisk southeasterly wind dropped the maximum a couple of degrees from the Thursday peak with a maximum of 17.3C at 15.00. However, this peak was 6.6C above average and occurred when the cloud radar showed a large patch of more or less clear skies over southern England between 14.00 and 16.00.

The first rain drops for nine days was noted just before 19.00 with a heavier pulse at 19.35, which totalled 2.9mm, that took the monthly rainfall total to 4.4mm when the 40-year average is 62.9mm.

The cloud overnight meant a mild night with the thermometer not dropping below 8.5C at 03.38 early Saturday.

Saturday revealed a cloudy start to the new day with the thermometer having recovered to 9.3C by 08.00. The two major UK weather forecasters cannot agree whether there will be light rain this afternoon! The humidity at 08.00 was logged at 93.5%, the highest for over a week and was due to the rainfall last evening. Currently, the radar shows a thick area of cloud crossing the Channel from France and heading northwest over southern England as a result there is not much possibility of sunshine today, perhaps a little weak sunshine this afternoon if the cloud thins.

The centre of the depression is just off the western approaches and is forecast to linger over France for the next day or so. This slight relocation will see the wind back from southeast today to north on Sunday. This will be a cooler direction so the peak tomorrow will be depressed from the very warm days of this past week.

The first day of Spring on Thursday gave us the warmest day all month also since 19th September (22.3C), which was a significant 9.1C above my long-term average. We have just enjoyed the warmest night this month when the thermometer did not sink below 8.8C, logged at 06.29 early Friday, being 6.1C above the long-term average. It follows that it has been the warmest start a day at 08.00 this month with the thermometer having edged back upwards to 9.5C.

The other feature to record yesterday the highest all month was the loss of equivalent rainfall through evaporation from the ground and plant life that gave a daily total of 2.5mm. The loss for the month is now a significant 30.7mm set against the minimal rainfall of 1.5mm.

There is a significant change in our weather for Friday. The recent high pressure, that dominated our weather for well over a week, has given in and allowed the depression, that has lingered around Iberia for four days, to take charge of our weather today. The barometric pressure dropped 12mb over the last twenty-four hours, reading 1008.1mb at 08.00, the lowest since the 13th. The cloud built up yesterday and overnight and today will minimise any sunshine, if any, that is likely to be weak. A weather front and its associated rain band will make progress over the UK later this afternoon and evening, the rain radar indicates that this could be the wettest day for almost a month with a significant fall. Rain is currently over Cornwall and the radar shows minor outbreaks coming in from the south coast, currently heading toward Basingstoke, on a brisk southeasterly. As the depression edges closer, the pressure gradient will increase with a consequent strengthening of the wind as the day progresses.