Friday 25th September
The variable cloud on Thursday allowed the strong sunshine, during breaks, to lift the temperature to the highest since Saturday with a maximum of 17.7C at 15.10 before the cloud built again. The high was 1.3C below average and the sixth consecutive maximum below average. The wind continued from a northeasterly direction and was quote brisk at times with a maximum gust of 22mph. The past night was another cool night with a minimum of 2.1C at 07.14 being a significant 6.6C below average.
After dawn on Friday I observed a band of cloud on the eastern horizon, which at that time was very slowly edging westwards. I had hoped for the sun to rise above the cloud bank, even for a short period, that would result in brief sunshine to give lift to the early morning temperature but the cloud began to encroach ever faster with the sun losing out on the race to get above the clouds, that were overhead by 08.00. The temperature at 08.00 had lifted very little from the minimum to reach 2.8C. Cloud has been drifting in from the North Sea overnight, picking up moisture on its travels, that will likely mean little or no sunshine on Friday, the humidity at 08.00 read 94.3%, the highest at 08.00 for over a week.
The recent anticyclone continues to weaken and drift further over Scandinavia, there has been a further drop of 4mb since yesterday. This slight relocation will result in the air stream today veering into the east and southeast as the day progresses, a slightly warmer direction than recent days.
It looks as of the anticyclone will leave sufficient high pressure to keep the encroaching weather front from crossing the country on Saturday until the evening and by then it will have weekend substantially with little prospect of much, if any precipitation, as it fragments.
The further outlook seems to suggest that a modest high pressure will form over he Azores and linkup with our old anticyclone that will result in the return of sunny and dry weather for much of next week with little prospect of much rain for the dry gardens.
Ex Hurricane Gabrielle, now off the coast pf Portugal and much weakened, is being succeeded by ex Tropical Storm Humberto in mid-atlantic that has just been upgraded to a Hurricane with sustained speeds of 75mph.