Monday 27th.
Sunday gave us a cool and cloudy start although it brightened up in the afternoon, however, the northwesterly breeze and limited sunshine meant a cooler day. The maximum of 21.6C was logged at 15.54 being 1.1C below average. The UV level was also much lower with a value of 4.1, the second lowest after the showery day on the 6th, rated as ‘Medium’ strength. It was the nineteenth dry day this month.
The past night was unexpectedly cool that saw the thermometer drop away to reach a minimum of 8.2C at 06.04 That was just after the time the sun was supposed to rise at 05.24, however, cloud obscured any sunshine. This low was 3.7C below my long-term average.
Monday arrived with total cloud cover, which looking at the back track of the cloud radar indicated a relatively clear night until the cloud eased down just after 05.00, which is why the temperature dropped so low for July. There was a modest recovery in the temperature to reach 12.5C by 08.00.
The high pressure has begun to reassert itself with a rise of 3mb since yesterday. However, the track of the air stream is around its western flank then dropping down over the UK, coming from a cooler northwesterly direction. This is a long track over the ocean, picking up moisture on its way, hence the variable cloud cover over the next few days. The other factor is that the centre of the Azores High is in mid-Atlantic rather than over the UK, when it would have meant much clearer air and higher temperatures.
With very little rain, even in the form of showers, the ground continues to dry out which has seen the rate of evaporation reduce to around 2mm per day when earlier in the month it was up to 6mm a day. The rainfall for July currently stands at 20.8mm with the equivalent loss of rainfall through evaporation from ground sources now totalling 102.0mm.
An example of the flowers at the Compton Acres Gardens near Poole.