After a sunny morning on Sunday the cloud built gradually after around 13.00 and then thickened before 15.00 that produced a few drops of rain at 15.15, also observed again just before 15.45, but not enough to wet the ground, I could count the number of drops per square metre there was so little when the gardens and fields are desperate for steady rainfall over a few hours. However, there was a light shower that started just before 06.00 early Monday that produced just 0.6mm of precipitation. The brief heavy showers were, once again, to the north of Marlborough, around Swindon, and west of Marlborough, Melksham would have had a heavy shower.
The maximum temperature on Sunday was 24.3C being exactly 7C above my long-term average being the warmest day since the 1st when 28.1C was logged. The peak was logged at 13.07 before the cloud began to increase. The past night, thanks to the variable cloud cover, was very mild with the thermometer not dropping below 11.9C, logged at 05.16 early Monday, which was 4.9C above average and made it the warmest night this month also since the 6th December.
The start to Monday revealed total cloud over with the odd minor break when the sun broke through. This is thanks to the depression still over the Bay of Biscay throwing a large sheet of cloud across southern England as the air stream rotates anticlockwise from a southeasterly wind direction, however, for the next two days much lighter in strength.
Finishing this report at 08.30 the sun has broken through to lift the temperature to 15.1C, however, the rain radar shows a band of heavy showers crossing the Channel and just reaching the south coast, from Swanage in the west to Hastings in the east, with a few further behind in mid-Channel, that might just bring some rain later this morning. The rain at the moment is particularly heavy from Southampton to Portsmouth.
Looking forward, Tuesday will probably bring much lighter cloud cover, with hopefully some sunshine, as a high pressure will exert itself from the north pushing the depression back into the Atlantic from whence it came. There could be the occasional shower from the rising temperature as fair-weather clouds could bubble up producing cumulus clouds that might produce a heavy shower.
The rest of the week looks to return to dry, sunny and warm conditions as the anticyclone close in and buck,kds producing a block g high agar st and weather fronts approaching from the Atlantic.