Tuesday 28th October
The maximum of 13.8C at 13.58 on Monday made it the warmest day since the 22nd when, in the sunshine and out of the very brisk northeasterly breeze, it felt very pleasant. However, the high was still 1.1C below my long-term October average. The evening temperature was unusual in that it only very slowly dropped to 10.4C at 21.00 before rising over the next hour to 11.4C and then hovered around 11C for much of the night. This rise was due to the arrival of increasing cloud cover from a weather front that crossed our area during darkness that as it cleared before dawn producing clearing skies, resulted in the thermometer dropping to a minimum of 9.6C, which was 2.4C above average.
Tuesday after sunrise saw the remains of the cold front on the eastern horizon with the sun beginning to shine soon after dawn as it rose above the cloud bank. With the clearance of the weather, resulting from a slight rise in barometric pressure and no weather fronts imminent, we have a dry and sunny day ahead. The barometric pressure reading at 08.00 was 1008.3mb. The wind has backed a few degrees and will today come predominantly from the west during daylight hours and continue to be brisk.
The rest of the week will be changeable with sunshine and showers, several on Wednesday, as we are now fully under the influence of weather systems arriving from the Atlantic as the forecasts indicate a succession of low pressure systems crossing the country this week.
We will, very fortunately, not be subjected to extreme conditions that are now approaching Jamaica with sustained winds of 175mph and forecast rainfall of up to a metre (1,000mm) such as Hurricane Melissa that continues to intensify in the Caribbean. The track of Hurricane Melissa is forecast for it to change into a northeasterly direction, across the central Caribbean, and then up the east coast of North America.