With little breeze from the west and relentless strong sunshine the thermometer slowly edged up all morning on Sunday hovering for a while at 27C at 15.24 before a sustained burst of sunshine and accumulated heat lifted the maximum to 27.4C at 16.24. The highest solar energy was logged at 12.55 with 1257W/m2 recorded, simultaneously, the UV peaked with a value of 8.5, the highest since 13th August 2024, which was at the top end of ‘Very High’. Initially the thermometer slowly edged downwards overnight, under clear skies, with a minimum of 13.6C logged in the very early hours at 03.09 on Monday, however the back track of the cloud radar showed thin, high cloud drifting in from the south just before 04.00. Early risers would have seen on Monday morning that the cloud limited the sunshine after dawn with misty conditions but by 07.30 the sun was beginning to find breaks and lifted the temperature to 19.9C by 08.00.
Monday will see the temperatures rise very high again, especially as the air stream backed from west yesterday to southeast overnight with this morning wafting hot air from the Azores region courtesy of the Azores High. The centre of the high has eased a little eastwards over the Netherlands hence the change in direction.
A small disturbance, minimal low pressure area, will form off the southeast coast of the UK tomorrow, so there is an outside chance of some light rain in the afternoon, with the wind briefly backing into a northerly quadrant.
With no rain possible today the total rainfall for June will stand at 37.1mm against my 41-year average of 52.9mm. Due to the heat and warm winds there has been an equivalent loss of rainfall, due to evaporation from ground sources and plant life, of 110.1mm.
The opposite to wind chill in the winter was again apparent on Sunday. Using data from the wind strength, temperature, humidity and also solar activity, outside at 14.00 it felt more like 30.9C when the thermometer registered 25.3C.
I am starting a new series of images for a week or two of bees that are so important to crops, taken from my library over the post 50 years. They were taken at various times in the year.