Wednesday 4th February
Tuesday once again was wet, very wet, with 11.0mm of additional precipitation as the rain was consistently modest all day, eventually ceasing just after 20.00. This continuous rain was due to two weather fronts moving north across the country that meant the temperature of 4.8C at 08.00 was maintained until late afternoon when it began to slowly drop away as the weather fronts exited to the north with cooler air behind it.The minimum of 2.5C was held from 19.56 to 21.14 before the temperature began to rise with a peak of 5.6C at 08.00 on Wednesday. Strange times with the minimum in the late evening and the maximum the next morning during my 24 hours observation period from 08.00 to 08.00.
Wednesday after 08.00 showed signs of the cloud beginning to thin with the hope of not only a dry day, no weather fronts in sight until Thursday, and the possibility of very welcome sunshine, if weak, during the afternoon.
During Tuesday I mentioned that two weather fronts crossed our area, the first was a Warm Front indicated by a red line and red semicircles on the synoptic chart. This was followed by an Occluded Front, with a solid purple or pink line with alternating triangles and semi-circles of the same colours pointing in the direction of movement on the synoptic chart, The type of front occurs when a fast-moving cold front catches up to a slower warm front, lifting the warm air complexity off the ground. This was the reason the temperature began to fall away after 15.00.
Looking ahead, the unsettled weather with cloudy conditions bringing outbreaks of mostly modest falls of rain, are likely to continue up to and after the weekend with, at the moment, no strong signal of severe weather in the short term.
If we could have a few hours of quality sunshine the prolific carpet of snowdrops would open, as in the image from Welford Park, near Newbury.