Monday 1st September
The showers held off all day on Sunday, in fact the bulk of the heavy showers were to the west of Marlborough with lighter ones to the east, driven on by a brisk southwesterly breeze gusting to 27mph locally. However, the clouds did begin to thicken up around midday so it was no surprise to find that the maximum was logged very early in the afternoon at 13.45, with a maximum of 20.5C being 1.6C below my long-term average. Thanks to the cloud cover overnight the temperature only fell to a minimum of 13.5C at 06.22, just after sunrise was due at 06.19 in Marlborough, being 2.3C above average.
There was no clear sunrise on Monday due to 7/8th cloud cover with weak sunshine breaking through occasionally. The wind is still from the southwest as the low pressure is still parked close to the west of Scotland that will continue the pattern of sunshine with the greater possibility of showers today. In fact heavy showers were approaching the south of our region by 08.15, just north of Salisbury.
A secondary low-pressure system is forming to the southwest that will move across the country on Tuesday bringing more rain and gusty winds.
The Met Office released today the new list of storms for 2025, in partnership with Irelands’s Met Eirann and the Dutch service of KNMI. This year more than 50,000 suggestions for storms were submitted to the Met Office from across the UK, Netherlands and Ireland. They state “The final selection includes some of the most popular choices as well as names which have a story behind them. The names are selected to reflect the diversity of each region and assessed for pronunciation, differing meanings across countries, links to public figures, and potential controversy.”
The Met Office started naming storms in 2015. In the UK, storms are named when they are likely to cause disruption or damage that could lead to an amber or red warning. This decision is based on both the potential impact of the weather and how it is likely to happen. Storms are typically named on the impacts of strong winds. Although other weather-related effects are also taken into account, like heavy rainfall or snow which may lead to flooding or travel disruption.
As it is the first day of Meteorological Autumn I am starting a new series of autumnal images taken at Stourhead some 10 years ago.
My review of August will be added tomorrow when I have processed them.