The predominantly cloudy skies on Saturday, with occasional bright intervals, meant the maximum of 14.8C, logged at 13.40, made it the coolest day since the 18th, however, it was still significantly above average with +4.1C. Likewise, the past night was much cooler that saw the thermometer drop to 6.1C, logged at 06.17 before the sun got to work, which was also well above my long-term average with +3.4C.
Although much of southern England was under a large area of cloud on Sunday morning, there was a small hole of thin cloud over central southern England that gave us a very welcome sunny start to the new day. This boost of sunshine lifted the thermometer to 9.0C by 08.00. However, the radar shows a large bank of cloud quite close to southeastern Britain, with heavy showers and possible lightning, that might drift closer later this afternoon. There is a noticeable shift in wind direction today with the breeze having backed from the southeast over the past four days to come from the north, but thankfully light in strength.
France is not keeping the recent depression to itself, currently lurking over Brittany and still throwing banks of cloud over the UK and will likely dominate for much of Sunday. However, the outlook is for this low pressure system to slowly fill as a ridge of high pressure asserts itself on Tuesday. The barometric pressure has already started to slowly rise, up 3mb since yesterday.
The general view is that the soil temperature needs to be at a minimum of 7C or 8C before seeds in the soil can germinate. I think gardeners will begin to have thoughts of planting for the new season this coming week as the soil temperature at a depth of 6cm read at 08.00, was logged at 9.2C, 8.9C and 8.8C for the past three days respectively. The forecast for the coming few days is for it to be a little cooler but still above average by day also, at the moment, no overnight frosts are thought likely. I noticed this morning that a few sweet pea seeds that I planted optimistically some three weeks ago, in a sheltered small area, have started to throw the first shoots above ground.
Update at 08.45. The radar shows the cloud encroaching over our area from the north and southeast, an unusual scissors movement, with the sun now being blocked out.
I will include the daffodil image again as they are currently at their best but any heavy rain and strong winds will spoil them. Some of mine were close to the ground after the rain on Friday evening.