A rash of showers passed over southern England on Wednesday, mostly missing our area other than a light shower just before 10.00 on Wednesday. The variable cloud meant the temperature was slow to rise to a maximum of 17.6C at 13.30 before more cloud built up in the afternoon limiting the sunshine. The high was 3.0C below average.
A weather front passed over southern England overnight that brought much thicker cloud resulting in a relatively mild night that saw the thermometer not drop below 11.2C at 03.16 being exactly 1C above my long-term average. The main areas of rain were to the south of our region and the north with just 2.1mm falling in the early hours, stopping just before 07.45.
Thursday revealed thick cloud from the back edge of the weather front slowly easing away eastwards with a little brightness arriving. The rain radar at 08.00 showed much shower activity arriving from the west during the morning indicating the track of the heaviest rain travelling to the north of our area.
We are still under the influence of the deep depression just east of Iceland that is slowly edging northwards and will dominate our weather for a few more days. The forecast track of the jet stream indicates that for the next few days it will track across England pushing weather fronts across the country, however, by Wednesday next week it is likely to relocate to the the north of the UK this allowing more warm and drier air to return from the south.
Kennet and Avon Canal: This waterway in southern England has an overall length of 87 miles, made up of two lengths of navigable river linked by the canal. The images for the next few days were of the horse drawn barge on the canal just east of Hungerford.