Tuesday saw temperatures rise again, both by day and night. Although the breeze was from the west, the very strong sunshine after a cloudy morning, boosted the temperature to a high of 24.7C at 16.33 being 4.1C above my long-term average and the warmest day since Saturday. Overnight cloud minimised loss of warmth into the atmosphere thus it has been a mild night with a minimum of 15.2C just before sunrise at 04.24 being 5.0C above average.
The clearer air from the Atlantic saw the peak solar radiation reach 1172W/m2 at 12.58, some 35% higher than last week when we had the polluted air from the Continent.
Wednesday morning brought total cloud cover that has been edging up from a larger bank of thick cloud over the Channel. However, there are signs that it might begin to thin and break up as the morning progresses. The temperature at 08.00 had risen to 17.6C.
We are still under the influence of the Atlantic and sandwiched between the low pressure to the northwest and high pressure to the south thus the wind will continue to come from the west but be less strong than of late as the pressure gradient has decreased. There is currently an area of disturbance over the Bay of Biscay that is likely to move northeastwards and clip the southeast of the UK but not likely to produce much rain over our area.
The Atlantic air has brought much more humid air having travelled over the sea rather than land from the Continent as last week. The humidity at 08.00 for the last two days has been in the mid-80’s compared to the mid-70’s last week. The pattern is the same in the afternoon with mid 70% recently when last week the humidity dropped exceptionally low to the mid 40%.
The total rainfall for June so far is just 34.1mm compared to my 41-year average of 52.9mm with little rain likely in the next few days.
The forecast track of the Jet Stream is for it to begin to move northwards again so allowing hotter air to return for the next few days, likely peaking over the weekend or possibly next Monday.
The image was taken from St Peter’s Church tower in Marlborough looking east over the high street