Sunday 19th July
The morning of Saturday was bright with strong sunshine, however, variable cloud arrived as the afternoon progressed that limited the increase in heat. In fact, the maximum of 24.2C, early in the afternoon at 15.10, made it the coolest day this month, being just 1.3C above average. The past night was also cool that gave us a minimum of 9.9C at 05.46 early Sunday morning, which made it the second coolest night this month after 6.9C on the 3rd. The low was 2.0C below average.
Sunday began bright with muted sunshine as it began to work on the high, thin cloud. Due to the sun rising later, almost a month after the longest day also the limited sunshine, the thermometer only slowly rose to 15.3C at 08.00, the coolest start to a new day at that time since the 3rd.
The high pressure is proving reluctant to disappear as currently it is meandering around the mid-Atlantic, to the west of the UK. In fact the barometric pressure is currently building that will see it fend off any possible weather fronts that might topple around its northerner edge during the week. The barometric pressure of 1025.2mb at 08.00 was the highest since the 5th. Thanks to the anticyclone, this week will continue very warm but thankfully no heatwave, as maximum temperatures will be just a few degrees above average, not excessively hot. The reason for the drop in temperature is that the air stream will originate from near Iceland and arrive from a northerly sector for the first part of the week before a significant change to then come from a westerly direction from around Friday, that will bring a change in our weather pattern. We have survived seventeen consecutive dry days with, at the moment, no likelihood of any precipitation during the coming week.
I am starting a new series of images that seem appropriate for warm, dry summer days, being scenes of a horse drawn barge trip on the Kennet and Avon Canal.