Monday 20th April
The continuing northeasterly on Sunday meant a cooler day with variable cloud, which restricted the rise in temperature to a maximum of 13.9C, logged at 14.46, being 0.3C below average. In fact it was the coolest day since the 13th. The live feed of temperature during the evening showed a much steeper decline in the graph, with the warmth falling away much more quickly than the previous night, down to 3C just before midnight. After that time the graph levelled out with a temperature of around 2.5C until a dip after 05.00 resulted in a minimum of 0.8C at 06.14 just after sunrise in Marlborough at 06.02. Looking at the back track of the cloud on the radar trace revealed the reason for the thermometer not falling much lower, which was as expected, a bank of cloud had drifted in from the east, otherwise we could have seen an air frost by daybreak.
Monday began with very welcome sunshine again that had lifted the temperature to 7.1C by 08.00. The air stream still continues from the northeast that could feed in some cloud from the cold North Sea as the day progresses, resulting in variable sunshine later in the day.
The week ahead appears to be settled as the high pressure, centred near Iceland, will be the dominant feature of the weather. This will result in the air stream continuing to come from the northeast or east-northeast. As a result nights will continue cool but the thinking is that there might be less cloud from Wednesday, which as a result would see temperatures by day rise a little above the average for April. The main feature will be the continuing dry conditions with little prospect of rain.
The forecast surface pressure charts indicate that there will be a subtle change in the area the air has travelled over by Wednesday, less directly off the North Sea with a track a little further south before it arrives here, over the land mass of the near Continent, thus less cold and drier.
This month we have had eight days when precipitation has been recorded, totalling 15.5mm, mostly modest falls, which is just 27% of my 42-year record. During the past two days the loss of equivalent rainfall has been 3mm a day with 45.3mm lost during the month to date, which means a deficit of 30mm. With little likelihood of rain this week it looks as if this month will be another below average month, as was March. For any gardeners that have pushed their luck by getting plants out early in the soil, watering has already started, as the top layer of soil is quite dry and evaporation is high.