Category: News

The thermometer struggled to reach a maximum of 2.7C yesterday, just after 2pm. It then drifted downwards again and started to freeze very early just before 5pm. After an initial halt to the lowering temperature in early evening it reached a mimimim of -4.3C at sunrise this morning.
The very cold days and nights have meant that the frost has permeated deep into the ground and my soil thermometer, at a depth of 5cm, is reading -3.2C at 08.00 this morning. The sun today is rising into a blue sky after 6 hours of strong sunshine yesterday (100 W/sq.m.).

Yesterday gave us 6.59 hours of strong sunshine making it the sunniest day since 11th October 2016, also the UV light level was the highest this month. The thermometer struggled to a maximum of 5.2C just after 2.30pm but dropped almost continuously to a minimum of -5.9C at 06.35, making it the coldest night since 2nd December. There was more of a breeze yesterday with a maximum gust of 18 mph just before 2pm, unlike the calm of previous days.
The thermometer usually continues to drop following a hard frost until a while after the sun rises so the minimum almost two hours before sunrise today was unexpected. At 08.00 the temperature had recovered to -4.2C, still a hard frost.
The drier air has increased the evaporation from ground and plant sources again. The rainfall this month, so far, is only 44% of the long-term mean for January. With two previous very dry winter months, it is of concern that there is no substantial rainfall in the forecast as the aquifers have not refilled after the summer. It is not surprising that the Rivers Og and Kennet are currently running very low as they pass through Marlborough.

The ridge of high pressure, from the anticyclone bringing us Continental Air, maintained sunshine yesterday with 4 hours in total. Last night was not as cold as the previous one with a minimum of -1.5C.
This morn is dawning bright with blue sky and the promise of more sunshine with the humidity level at 90%, the lowest at 08.00 for almost two months. Consequently the evaporation of moisture form ground and plant sources was 0.47mm, the second highest this month, when we are short of rainfall this winter.

As the anticyclone intensived over this area the cloud yesterday did thin a little but not enough to allow any sunshine to break through. The rising barometric pressure did influence the temperature with a maximum of only 4.6C at 14.53 yesterday, which is 2C below the mean. After that time the thermometer very slowly began to fall until reaching a low of -2.4C just before sunrise. There was very little movement of the air trapped underneath the high pressure with the strongest at 8mph during the whole day, with many hours when there was not enough to activate the anemometer.
This morning the barometer is reading 1038.3mb, the highest reading for three weeks. There is hazy sunshine at sunrise breaking through the thin upper layer of cloud.

The warm front continued to plague us yesterday with very low, thick cloud producing frequent bursts of drizzle and light rain, totalling 5.4mm. Not surprisingly there was no sunshine, even indirect sunshine, and no measurable UV light. The evaporation from plants and ground sources was at it’s lowest for a month – almost negligible. The temperature peaked at 8.7C at 10.20 yesterday and since that time the thermometer has been dropping, reaching its lowest at 3.2C his morning.
This morning the precipitation has ceased as the high pressure intensifies also there is much improved visibility as the cloud base is much higher.