Category: News

Yesterday gave us 6.2 hours of direct sunshine. It was the sunniest day for a month and the warmest since the beginning of October with a maximum of 18.5C.
The minimum for the previous night was 11.9C, which is 4.5C above the 30-year average.

The average rainfall for October fell in the first half of the month and recently very little has fallen to add to this total, now 89.6mm. The southerly winds have been bringing mild air with overnight minima in double figures and no air frost this month so far.
My records since 1984 show that there have been seven instances when no air frost has been recorded in October and these have all occurred since the year 2000.

The worst of ex-hurricane Gonzalo passed Marlborough by.

There was no precipitation during daylight hours today with just 2.1mm over the past twenty-four hours.

A maximum wind gust of 38mph occurred at 1346. There were frequent gusts for several hours in excess of 30mph.

Just before 1400 the temperature began to fall from a maximum of 12.8C to 11C as the wind continued to veer from a southwesterly direction to a cooler northwesterly.

The wind strength over this period gave a wind chill of 9C.

Barometric pressure started to rise rapidly from a low of 1001mb just before 0700 as the centre of the depression began to move away. At 1800 the reading was 1015mb.

With no showery activity there was a total of 4.83 hours of direct sunshine, the highest total for 11 days.

The 19th was the first dry day after 15 consecutive days with rainfall and also proved to be very warm with a maximum of 18.3C, which is 4C. above the 30-year average.

The minimum temperature overnight was 15.8C making it the warmest night since 5th September.

Another 10.7mm of rain fell in the past 24 hours bringing the total this month so far to 83.2mm, which is very close to the 30-year average for October. The last two years have seen very wet Octobers with 135mm and 121mm in 2013 and 2012 respectively. The total rainfall for 2014 to date is 911mm making it the fifth wettest year on record with the rest of October, then November and December, which can only increase the annual amount for this year.