After a bright, and at times sunny day yesterday, rain returned last night with a band of heavy precipitation amounting to 15.8mm. This brings the total for January to 64.5mm, which is 70% of the long-term average for January. The maximum temperatures for the first ten days of January are still all above the long-term average but forecast to fall this week.
Category: News
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Saturday brought another day with heavy showers and no sunshine
Saturday brought 5mm of further rainfall, principally around 6pm, with winds gusting to 38mph, the strongest this month. There have been twenty-one consecutive days with rainfall and brings the total for January to 48.7mm, which is 53% of the long-term average for January.
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Sunniest day for week
Yesterday brought 3.24 hours of strong sunshine, the sunniest day since 29th December. There has been considerable rainfall amounting to 8.9mm, the bulk of which fell in the early hours of today.
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Cooler and brighter
Last night the minimum of 0.8C produced a ground frost and was close to the mean for January. During the daytime yesterday 2.5 hours of sunshine was recorded with peak gusts of wind from a clearer, drier westerly direction of over 30mph with a maximum of 36mph.
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Summary for 2015
Annual Summary – 2015
Rainfall: Although our view of 2015 might be coloured by recent months, which were predominantly cloudy and wet, the overall rainfall total of 783mm was 93% of the 31-year average, some 57mm below the average of 840mm. It was the driest year since 2011. It is interesting to see the extremes over the past 32 years with rainfall of 1146mm in 2002 and the driest year of 1996 produced just 594mm.
Monthly quantities varied widely as is expected between the seasons with a November total of 107.4mm and the driest month of April brought 17.7mm.
We tend to think that the wettest day is probably in the winter but warm air holds more moisture than cold and this year the wettest day was 24th July with 33.5mm
The number of wet days, that is a daily total equal or greater than 1mm, was 135, which is just five greater than the 31-year average.
Temperature: It was not a great summer for high temperatures with the warmest day being 1st July that produced a maximum of 33.1C. The mean for the year was 10.28C, which is 0.5C above the 31-year average and the thirteenth in temperature order since 1984 when this station was started.
Air Frosts: The occurrence of air frosts was also notable in that the first occasion in autumn was 22nd November, one day earlier than the record set in 2011. It was also the first December in which no air frost was recorded thanks to the persistent sub-tropical air.
There were just 38 air frosts in the year, just two more than the record set in 2014.
Solar Energy: My equipment to measure this aspect of meteorology was only installed in 2009. I find that the year 2015 produced 103% of the 5-year average.
Sunshine: The total number of hours of strong sunshine amounted to 1131. I have no comparisons to make as this instrument was only installed during the summer of 2014. The months of June (168 hours) and September (137 hours) were the sunniest in 2015.
Records broken in 2015: (Previous record in brackets)
Warmest January day with a maximum of 14.2C – (13.0C)
Lowest January Barometric pressure of 974.5mb – (977.1mb)
Coldest July night with a minimum of 13.2C – (13.7C)
Warmest December day with a maximum of 14.3C – (13.6C)
Warmest December night with a minimum of 12.7C – (11.5C)
Warmest December with a mean of 9.86C – (4.34C)
No air frost in December