Monday 22nd December
Although the breeze had backed into the east on Sunday, a cooler direction, the residual warm air and relatively warm ground temperature meant another maximum and minima well above average. The peak of 9.9C, was not logged during daylight hours, as is normal at this time of year, but just before midnight at 23.52, being +2.4C. The thermometer held steady for much of the early hours of Monday, only beginning to fall away after 05.00 to reach 8.8C at 08.00.
Monday began dark and gloomy but there were early signs that the cloud was a little thinner with the hope that we could have a little brightness, or even brief sunshine, later in the morning. The soil temperature at a depth of 5cm read 8.7C at 08.00.
The mini-depression I mentioned yesterday, that had formed off the Brest peninsula, is still there and will continue to feed mild air across the UK on easterly breeze, but the origin of the air is from the eastern Atlantic, thus not cold – not yet!
As the week moves towards Christmas, the depression will edge eastwards, towards the Mediterranean, whilst the high pressure over Scandinavia will continue to build, which by Tuesday will begin to push cooler air from the Continent, not the mild Atlantic, that by Wednesday will have begun to settle into a more regular pattern of winds from the east-northeast or northeast. This cooler direction from eastern Europe will mean maxima and minima will drop below average. However, the air will be drier than that recently brought from the Atlantic.