Windrush Weather

One more fine day this week before a change on Saturday

Thursday gave us another fine, warm day that saw the thermometer eventually climb to a peak of 24.2C at 15.49 being 1.5C above average. However, thin cloud had drifted across by that time that limited any further rise. For the second successive night the minimum of 8.8C was below average at -3.0C, logged at 05.15, just after sunrise in Marlborough at 04.56.

After a bright start to Friday variable cloud arrived around 07.30 that limited the strength of the sunshine. The warm, dry weather today is the result of a ridge of high pressure from the Azores High.

This will be the last day of high temperatures this week as the recent anticyclone is splitting, as last week, returning from whence it came, with high pressure also building over the Continent. This relocation will allow a low-pressure system near Iceland to encroach over the UK bringing cloud on Saturday with little sunshine. In fact there is the possibility of some light rain, quantities probably limited, sadly, as any precipitation would be very welcome to gardeners for their parched gardens.

High pressure has retreated to the southwest, back to the Azores, and this semi-permanent high pressure that we get near the Azores, known as the Azores High, has been ebbing and flowing from the southwest during the past week, hence this repeating cycle.

The Azores High is a semi-permanent area of high pressure located over the eastern Atlantic Ocean typically near the Azores archipelago. It influences weather patterns across Europe as well as North Africa, and parts of North America.