Category: Commentary

The westerly winds, light all day, meant a slightly warmer day than the two previous days with a maximum of 6.4C, this being 1.4C below average.

There were 4.1 hours of sunshine that brings the total this month to 33 hours with a totally dry day, the seventh this month.

Overnight the clear skies meant a cold night with a minimum of -1.9C at 03.46, which was almost 4C below the average. However, thin, broken cloud, ahead of the next rain band, drifted across the sky in the hours before dawn, allowing the thermometer to drift upwards with a reading of -0.6C at 08.00.

With the wind veering into the north west on Friday, a drier and cooler air mass, there was no precipitation and 5 hours of strong sunshine. This made it the second sunniest day in December after the 1st.

Clearing skies overnight meant an air frost with the thermometer sinking to -0.9C at 08.00 after a cool day yesterday when the thermometer did not rise above 5.0C, which was 3.5C below the average.

This morning has dawned dry and bright with the promise of more sunshine.

Thursday gave us 4.15 hours of sunshine but this did nothing to raise the temperature as the maximum of just 4.6C (3.2C below average) was reached at 11.31.

There were long periods of blue sky that disappeared under cloud early evening as another band of rain crossed the area producing 1.9mm of rainfall.

The thermometer fell to its lowest just after midnight (00.13C) with a minimum of 1.4C, just below average for December.

This morning is cloudy and very cool as the wind has veered into the north with wind gusting over 20mph with wind chill making it feel like -1C although the thermometer was reading 2.2C at 08.00

After a mild and dry start on Wednesday the rain arrived mid-morning for several hours and again between 7 and 8pm.

The rainfall amount ver the past twenty-four hours was 10.6mm and in the brief storm around 3pm contained small hail. The rainfall total for December now stands at 47.2mm, which is 53% of the long-term average.

The temperature yesterday and overnight yo-yoed up and down as the rain bands came and went with clear skies in between. The highest temperature was 2.1C late afternoon, just below the reading at 08.00 this morning. The maximum temperature was late morning with a reading of 8.1C, just above average.

In the gusts the wind was very strong from the west with a maximum of 33mph.

After a very hard frost Monday night / Tuesday morning the wind backed into the south lifting the temperature to around 5C during daylight hours. It took until late morning before the thermometer struggled above freezing and reaching its maximum.

We enjoyed 4.28 hours of sunshine, much of it hazy due to thin high cloud.

Late evening another weather front arrived from the west bring thickening cloud and light rain. The thermometer reached a maximum of 7.5C at 01.21 this morning before falling back to 5.9C at 08.00.

The rainfall last night, and again after the next weather front began to cross the area this morning, produced 3.9mm of precipitation.

This morning is dull and wet as the rain increases with all traces of the recent snow having disappeared.