Sunday 1st February
There was a slight relief from damp conditions on Saturday morning, which was dry and bright with weak sunshine, however, the rain returned at 13.20. With cloud building up before midday it was not surprising to find that the maximum of 9.6C was logged just after midday at 12.51. This high was 2.5C above average thanks to a drift of a warmer southerly airstream. After that time the temperature drifted down a couple of degrees before hovering around 6.0C for most of the night resulting in a minimum of 5.7C at 01.54, which was 4.5C above my long-term average. The automatic rain gauge indicated that the rain ceased just after 21.00 with a dry night to follow, the daily rainfall amounted to 8.0mm.
Sunday arrived dull and gloomy with foggy conditions that limited visibility to around 500m after first light. Light drizzle was observed falling from the low cloud. An area of low pressure arrived off the western approaches around midnight and will progress eastwards along the English Channel today ending up over the Kent area tonight. This new mini-depression has a wide band of cloud and rain, that will mean a damp and dismal day ahead during daylight hours. We are on the northern edge of the cloud and rain. As the depression moves eastwards the wind will veer from south to west then northwest during the late evening. This significant change in direction, mostly from the southeast for the last two weeks, will result in a cooler night to follow.
The weather pattern seems to have got itself stuck with the recent high-pressure still centring to the northeast, now over Scandinavia, in fact it has been in roughly that position since the middle of January, that will continue to block the eastwards progression of advancing depressions from the Atlantic, when they then stall over the UK. The coming week appears to continue the pattern of unsettled weather with periods of rain and limited sunshine. This is likely to result in temperatures by day and night around the average for early February with, at the moment, no indication of severe weather in the short term.
The recent images of a wonderful area of snowdrops were taken in Welford Park, near Newport, Berkshire.