Category: News

After a frosty start again yesterday there was a brief glimpse of the sun before cloud built up and the first rain (light) in ten days fell late afternoon. More substantial rain fell after 3am this morning with the total for the past twenty-four hours being 5.6mm, which brings the total for January to 46.7mm. This is exactly 50% of the January average when we are almost at the end of the month.
Both our local rivers, The Kennet and Og, are running extremely low. This is due to the below average rainfall over the past few months, November excepted, when precipitation can percolate down through the ground to refill the aquifers rather than evaporate from ground and plant life. There is a rule of thumb that this period occurs from mid-October to mid-March. The 32-year average for mid-October to the end of the year is 230mm and we have received just 151mm, a significant deficit of 79mm. The period from January to mid-March has an average rainfall of 183mm and to date, with just six weeks left in this period, received 47mm.
Another factor is that from mid-October to the current time, 42mm has evaporated into the atmosphere out of the total precipitation of 198mm. If we don’t receive significant rainfall in the next six weeks, our rivers will begin to dry up in the higher reaches when summer arrives.

With the winds strengthening from the south east yesterday morning the maximum just after 3pm was 1.2C but combined with a significant wind chill if felt like -4C. During the afternoon the wind backed into the east and began to slowly decline as did the temperature with the thermometer dropping to its lowest at 22.45 when a minimum of -2.2C was noted. These changes have been brought about by the gradual decline of barometric pressure over last two days to its lowest this morning at 1009mb, a drop of 30mb from its peak of 1039mb on the 18th.
The thermometer has been slowly rising over the past ten hours and had reached -0.4C at 08.00. This morning is dark and grey with thick cloud sufficiently low to be obscuring the tops of the Marlborough Downs.
Yesterday was another dry day, the tenth consecutive, making seventeen dry days this month with total rainfall at 41.1mm, 44% of the January mean.

The blocking high-pressure over the near continent has exerted its influence over the UK for many, many days with stagnant air and on some days thick fog. Just after 10am yesterday the barometer indicated the beginning of the decline in barometric pressure that has continued since with the lowest pressure this morning for more than two weeks.The consequence is that the persistent fog of yesterday, with visibility down to 150m that did not begin to lift until midday, has left us.
Overnight the wind has begun to pick up after so many calm days.The thermometer has hovered around zero most of the night, minimum of -0.3C, but the strengthening wind has meant significant wind chill making it feel more like -3C. The strongest gust before readings were taken at 0800 was 20mph just after 7am with the thermometer reading 0.1C.
This morning is overcast with low cloud and much lower humidity as the strengthening wind has brought the drier and cooler air from the continent.

Yesterday brought 1.80 hours of strong sunshine, which pushed the maximum temperature to 8.2C, the highest for a week and the UV level at 0.9 was the strongest since 15th November. Another day without rain and still under the influence of the blocking high pressure over the near continent that meant virtually no movement of the stagnant air, the highest reading on the anemometer was 8mph.
Fog returned in the evening and at dawn visibility was down to 150m and took until midday today before it started to lift very slowly.
After five days with the ground frozen at a depth of 5cm, the reading today was 0.2C.

The often hazy sky yesterday obscured the full strength of the sun for much of the day with only 0.58 hours of strong sunshine, although the thermometer did rise to its highest for a week with a maximum of 6.2C, still below average for January. It was another day with virtually no movement of the air for long periods with three occasions when the anemometer registered a maximum of just 6mph.
Overnight the thermometer dropped to -3.6c at 05.20 but thin cloud since that time has meant the temperature has risen to -1.7C at 08.00. There was no fog at the time when readings were taken.
The average number of air frosts for January, over the past 32 years, is 11 with the total for 2017 being 14 to date. The record for air frosts occurring in January was set in 1985 and 2010 when there were 22 days when we awoke to below freezing mornings.