Thursday was a cool, dreary and miserable day under the persistent thick cloud, even the wind from the southwest made it feel cold, especially in the afternoon. The thermometer struggled to reach a maximum of 10.8C at 12.20, although this was 0.1C above average we have got used to the well above average maxima this past week. It was the coldest day since the 17th (6.6C).
The diurnal range this past twenty-four hours has been minimal, just 2.7C, as the thermometer dropped to a minimum of 8.1C at 00.17 early Friday and hovered just above that temperature for most of the night.
Two cold weather fronts passed our way in the early hours of Saturday, that had seen the rainfall in them fragment as they travelled across the UK. There was precipitation of just 0.1mm in the first front that arrived at 05.20 and nothing in the second front that cleared our area by 06.50, just leaving full cloud cover. By 08.15 the back edge of the second front was showing signs of thinning and the solar radiation beginning to increase with variable sunshine possible later in the morning. The wind has veered into the Northwest, not seen for a fortnight.
With the addition of the 0.1mm precipitation this morning the total March rainfall rose to 5.3mm being only 8% of my 40-year average or minus 57.6mm. Although the loss of equivalent rainfall through evaporation from ground sources and plant life on Thursday was much reduced, due to lack of warmth and the ground having been drying out the past weeks, the total for March now stands at exactly 40mm.
The images since yesterday, and for the next week, were taken by me in early April for much of the Marlborough in Bloom portfolio and presentation in 2015, when we were awarded ‘Gold’. These are the scenes we can look forward to in the coming weeks as the temperature begins to rise again.