Saturday 22nd November
The thermometer edged higher on Friday due to the stream of Arctic air being cut off, rising to a maximum of 5.4C at 13.47, which was still 4.9C below average. However, that was not the highest temperature recorded over the past twenty-four hours. The temperature slowly slid away during the afternoon and early evening to reach a low of -1.7C at 20.31, producing a modest air frost, before slowly making an about turn and climbing overnight to reach 5.6C at 08.00 on Saturday. This latter rise was entirely due to cloud edging in from the west as the wind began to arrive from the Atlantic rather than the Arctic, that stopped any further loss of warmth into the atmosphere, it also brought a much warmer, but moist airstream. The low was 5.7C below average.
The significant change in weather was evident on Saturday morning that struggled to come into life under thick cloud and rain that had started to fall just before 07.00, the automatic rain gauge was triggered at 06.57, however that measures in increments 0.2mm so the first spots were a little before that time. By 08.00 the rainfall total was 1.6mm.
The recent nose of high pressure is now over the Continent and we are firmly experiencing an unsettled period with weather systems coming in from the Atlantic bringing wet and windy conditions. The rain is associated with a warm weather front that will cross the UK today, fragmented in nature, at the moment stretching from west of Cornwall, in the western approaches, to Kent.
The picture is of the River Kennet at Stonebridge in Marlborough, taken last year when the rainfall was much greater and the river level very high.