After a mainly cloudy morning on Wednesday the afternoon brought more showery conditions that on two occasions very briefly contained small hail, less than 5cm in diameter, observed at 13.50 and 14.40. On the second occasion the temperature dropped by almost 3C from its high of 7.1C. This peak made it the coldest day this month and was 3.6C below average.
The temperature overnight very slowly eased downwards but did not drop below freezing until 03.13, with a minimum of -0.3C at 03.51, it then rose above freezing at 04.15 rising to 2.3C by 08.00.
The start to Thursday was initially cloudy but the sun broke through just before 08.00. The showery, cool weather will continue thanks to the run of cold Arctic air squeezed between the low over the Continent and the High over Iceland brought on a northerly flowing quite brisk in the morning. The temperature of 2.3C at 08.00 felt more like 0.2C outside at that time thanks to wind chill. The brisk wind will become lighter this afternoon as the low eases away and the high gets closer.
The Met Office has been trialling aircraft-generated data that has been described as “successful” in improving weather forecasting. They have been receiving information from thousands of aircraft over the last two years as part of plans for improving forecasts. They have been taking the high-volume data feed, which provides real-time atmospheric data, that includes factors such as temperature and wind speed, from different points in the atmosphere and ingesting this data into the Met Office Global Model.
The Met Office representative said “Early results following this trial suggest that the integration of this data will have a significant positive impact on our global model, allowing us to achieve greater precision and contribute towards further advances in forecasting skill”.