Saturday 22nd August
After a fine morning on Friday the cloud began to thicken after around midday, as forecast, that limited the rise in temperature, which, combined with the cool northerly breeze, meant a maximum of only 19.2C at 13.10. This high was 2.4C below my long-term August average and the first below average maximum since 12th June, over two months ago. Under the cool air stream and clear skies a minimum of 7.4C was logged at 06.14 early Saturday, just after sunrise in Marlborough at 06.03, which was 4.4C below average.
Saturday arrived with the return of strong sunshine, after the cold night, that had lifted the temperature to 12.7C by 08.00, which not surprisingly, made it the coolest start to a new day at that time this month. The breeze is still coming from a cool northerly quadrant, however, with much greater sunshine this morning the temperature should recover to reach a maximum close to the late August average. However, the forecast cloud radar indicates that as yesterday, cloud will drift down from the north or northeast after around midday thus limiting the rise in temperature.
The high pressure has been pushing a ridge across the country this past twenty-four hours with a significant rise of almost 12mb, almost equaling the highest pressure this month, currently reading 1022.8mb at 08.00. This will result in a quiet, fine and dry weekend that will probably last over Monday.
As the high pressure relocates and edges towards the Continent, the air steam will veer a few degrees and come from the east or southeast tomorrow that could waft in some warmer air from the near Continent, gradually lifting the maximum a few degrees above average over the next three or four days.
Lurking down to the southwest is a depression that is circling around and edging eastwards at the moment. The forecast pressure charts indicate that it might join up with a mate near Iceland and move in over the UK from around Wednesday. If that scenario does in fact occur, we would have a significant change in our weather midweek to unsettled conditions with likely significant rainfall. This needs watching!