Category: News

The anticyclone maintained pressure over the UK yesterday giving a very still day with the anemometer, which is 4 metres above the ridge of the building, registering the strongest movement of air at just 4mph. The day was marked by very thick cloud that was low enough to cover the Marlborough Downs with a cloud base that occasionally lifted to improve visibility from 200m to 1000m until early afternoon. Mid-afternoon the cloud thinned to give a brief bright interval that just triggered the sunshine recorder before falling out again. The thermometer gave a maximum of 9.6C yesterday some 3C above the mean for January.
The minimum overnight occurred just before midnight with a reading of 6.7C but then started to rise heralding the arrival of yet another weather front. The wind has backed into the south and picked up with a gust of 17mph as the barometer dropped 10mb over the past twenty-four hours. The cloud base has lifted improving visibility markedly.

The legacy of the warm front on Friday is still with us as yesterday was another with fog at dawn slowly lifting into murky, misty conditions with occasional drizzle. There was minimal rainfall of 0.4mm but the most noticeable feature was the temperature. During the day the thermometer rose to a maximum of 10.1C after midday at 13.23, over 3C above the 32-year mean. This fell a little during the afternoon but maintained around 8C throughout the night.
The high pressure is still with us this morning providing little movement of the stagnant air, yesterday strongest short breeze was 9mph, and is doing nothing to lift or move on the thick cloud.

The warm front that traversed the country yesterday, and is still lingering near us, has meant a change from clear frosty weather to thick cloud and fog this morning.
The temperature slowly rose from freezing point yesterday morning to around 4C during the daytime. However, during yesterday evening the effect of the warm front was felt and heard as rain started to fall, intermittently at first and the thermometer started to rise again. The maximum this morning is 8.2C, the warmest start to a day for a fortnight. The rainfall total over the past twenty-four hours amounted to 8.2mm, the wettest day since 10th December. The visibility this morning is down to 100m.

Having enjoyed blue skies and much strong sunshine for two days, this morning has dawned with thick cloud cover, which has lifted the air temperature to just above freezing at 08.00 with a reading of 0.1C. This followed a beautiful day yesterday, if cold, when the thermometer only reached 4.9C, some 2C below the January average maximum. There were 5.52 hours of strong sunshine yesterday, but the temperature plummeted late afternoon and was dropping a degree very hour in the evening until it reached a minimum of -5.1C at 01.33 early the morning.
The heavy frost of the last few days has penetrated into the ground and meant that this morning the temperature of the soil at a depth 5cm is -0.7, yesterday morning it was -1.3C.

A Cold Front traversed the country yesterday bringing an abrupt change to the brief milder spell. The wind veered into the north east. As a result of the cool air behind the front, the thermometer has fallen continuously from just after 2am yesterday until the low of this morning. The maximum yesterday was 7.7C with a minimum this morning just after dawn of -5.4C.
The frost this morning is not as severe as that on the 1st December, which had a minimum of -7.1C. The sun has been over the horizon for half an hour in a blue sky wth some very thin high cloud. Evidence that we have turned the year as the length of daylight increases and the sun begins its return journey to the north with an increase in UV light from the lowest I can record of 0.5 in December with the last two days registering 0.7.

The Daily Statistics page for 2017 will appear in the next few days when the new website is launched. Apologies for the absence of this data so far this year.