Friday brought another 10.6 hours of glorious sunshine for the greater part of the day in very clear blue skies. Later in the afternoon thin, high cloud drifted in. The wind from the east increased in speed with a maximum gust of 21mph. However, the thermometer climbed to a peak of 17.7C being 3.4C above average. The UV level was the highest since 8th September with a peak value of 5.2, which is firmly in the ‘High’ category.
No air frost was recorded overnight with a minimum of 2.3C being 1.8C below average but there was a short lived ground frost.
We have now had 14 consecutive days without rain with the rainfall total for April still standing at 7.4mm against the 37-year average of 58.5mm. Not only has April been very dry with little in the forecast, an equivalent rainfall of 50mm has been lost through evaporation from ground sources and plant life. Over the last two days we have lost the equivalent of 3.62mm and 3.79mm of rainfall respectively.
The temperature at 08.00 on Saturday morning was 7.8C due to a slightly less cold night and sunshine from dawn. This made it the warmest start to a day this month.
