Category: News

Another day with sunshine, 5.73 hours, pushed the thermometer to 7.7C yesterday. But as the afternoon progressed the thermometer began to drop again until it reached a low of -2.2C just before midnight when cloud moving in meant a recovery to above freezing, reaching 2.3C at 08.00
This morning is grey and cold with thick cloud. There was no measurable wind yesterday afternoon, just a maximum gust of 5mph in the morning. Overnight has been still and at dawn the anemometer is motionless.

The last day of November brought more blue skies and 5.3 hours of welcome sunshine. The thermometer struggled to reach a maximum of 7.3C yesterday, a couple of degrees higher than previous days. Overnight the temperature dropped to its lowest point at 07.20 with a reading of -6.6C, slightly less severe than the previous night. The hard frosts have meant that for the first time this autumn / winter frost has permeated the ground, at a depth of 5cm, with the first subzero reading of -0.5C yesterday and this morning even lower at -1.3C.
Dawn today arrived with the promise of more blue sky, if a little hazy, and still wind. This follows the very quiet day yesterday when the strongest gust of wind was just 6mph.

Another gloriously sunny day yesterday with 6.14 hours of strong sunshine, down 0.1 hours on the previous day. However, the thermometer struggled to each a maximum of 5.1C, which is 5C below the average for November. During the mid-afternoon the temperature began to drop again and by 17.20 had already reached 0C. By 19.00 it was down to -2C and then hovered just above and below this temperature for a couple of hours before steadily descending overnight to a minimum of -7.3C at 07.06. This was the coldest night since 20th January 2016, which registered -7.4C.
The barometric pressure has risen a little as the anticyclone has intensified, reading 1035.9mb at 08.00, the highest since February 2016. With a clear blue sky again this morning the sun is rising but it will struggle to push the thermometer very high again today.

As the anticyclone intensified it brought a subtle change in the wind direction with more of an easterly component, which meant that drier continental air replaced the thick cloud of previous days. As a result I recorded 6.24 hours of strong sunshine (100w/sq.m), which was the highest daily total since 11th October. This did nothing for the temperature that peaked at 7.8C just before 2pm, which is 2.5C below the average maximum for November.
With clear skies in the afternoon and overnight the thermometer dropped consistently from just before 2pm with a minimum of -2.8C at 08.00. The barometric pressure at 08.00 was 1033.8mb, the highest this month. There was clear blue sky at dawn with the welcome sun just rising above Savernake Forest as I write.

Sunday gave us another very cloudy day with the north-easterlies persisting, still giving wind chill. During the evening the temperature dropped to its lowest at 21.30 with a reading of 3.9C but has since recovered a little to 5.1C at 08.00.
This morning the cloud is thinner and showing signs of breaking up.The noticeable feature is that the humidity at 08.00 is down to 84%, which is the lowest at this time of day since August. This heralds the arrival of drier, brighter air from the continent as the anticyclone intensifies and repositions itself.