Fortunately for this area the gale force winds passed to the west of us. The maximum gust of 37mph was recorded late afternoon at 17.35 although since 9am the wind strength had been rising with several gusts in excess of 30mph.
The thermometer rose steadily Monday morning to a maximum of 18.8C, at 10.56, the warmest day since 26th September, but began to fall away as storm ‘Ophelia’ travelled further north and away from this region.
Thick, yellow coloured cloud enveloped the area for a couple of hours with the red sun occasionally seen through the dense cloud. At this time the cloud, containing dust from the Sahara and pollution from the fires over Iberia, were so dense that our large solar panel array shut down completely for two hours either side of midday. Just after 2pm the cloud cleared and we enjoyed 1.73 hours of strong sunshine.
Overnight, the clearing skies meant the thermometer fell away to a minimum of 9.6C at 08.00.
This morning has dawned with weak sunshine and very still conditions.
