Saturday 23rd August
The temperature recovered quickly on Friday morning, after the very cool start, until just after 11.00 when there was a more gradual increase in temperature that reached a maximum of 23.6C at 16.07 being 1.5C above average that made it the warmest day since last Sunday. This rise in temperature was partly due to the wind backing away from the cool northeast to north and then west-northwest combined with the anticyclone being almost overhead that meant calm conditions, the strongest movement of air, couldn’t be called a gust, was 9mph. The past night was less cold than the previous very cool night, however, a minimum of 8.5C logged on Saturday at 06.32, just after sunrise in Marlborough at 06.05, was below average at -2.7C.

The new day on Saturday revealed that the cloud was almost continuous, but thin, allowing weak sunshine to filter through, that had lifted the temperature to 11.1C by 08.00. Later this afternoon the air stream will veer into an easterly quadrant and then this evening a southerly quadrant. All day the breeze will be very light between periods of calm.

The anticyclone this morning is almost overhead southern England so another calm day ahead with only light breezes. There is the possibility of more cloud drifting down from the north that would limit severely the sunshine today.

The remains of ex-hurricane Erin is currently just off the coast of Newfoundland and slowly heading our way carried along on the jet stream. The current projection indicates that by Tuesday it will be positioned between Scotland and Iceland. If that is correct we will be on the periphery of the intense centre of the low-pressure with modest rain, windy conditions and below average maxima.

New research from the Met Office reveals that we spend on average 56.6 hours, or two days and 9 hours, talking about the weather over the course of a year.