Saturday was another gloomy, drizzly day with thick cloud ahead of Storm Bella. During the evening the wind began to pick up, but fortunately not as strong as the warnings given. A peak gust of 38mph was logged at 01.29 in the early hours of Sunday. The strong winds began t abate after 02.00.
The southerly air stream allowed the thermometer to recover from the cold northerlies of previous days and reach a maximum 9.4C being 1.4C above average. As the rain band eased away Sunday morning the temperature dropped away to read 5.0C at 08.00
The rain began in earnest just before midnight and brought us the wettest twenty-four hours since the 14th November with 17.7mm. This brought the monthly total to 106.2mm, which is 14mm above the 36-year average.
Sunday morning saw the showery back end of the main rain band with broken sky and occasional showers. The wind has now backed into the west and is much calmer.
The centre of Storm Bella will migrate down across the country in the next twenty-four hours with extremely low pressure centred over southern England on Monday. The barometric pressure has dropped 45mb since 08.00 on Saturday and is forecast to fall another 10mb by Monday morning. The wind direction with change considerably during this period but be much lighter in strength.
