WEATHERFRONT

Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer. The only adjective that applies this year is ‘crazy’. We experienced sharp fluctuations in temperature, wind speeds and rainfall.

June was a month in which the wind direction was evenly shared between north and south. There were three calm days only. The first week of the month saw tornadoes over the Fens.

The average rainfall appeared to be quite normal but in fact it came in large doses at each end of the month with a very dry middle period.

Something that the chart does not show is that the rainfall at the end of the month included everything from flash thunderstorms to huge hailstones. A single storm deposited 15.6mm of rain in Coltishall. On the border with Essex a storm containing extra large hailstones deposited 11.2mm in only ten minutes. These storms were very local and many of us escaped the worse excesses.

Temperatures were very varied and far removed from the average of 19ºC. I recorded a high of 29ºC in Ringshall whilst Newmarket sizzled at 33ºC. The month started and ended on a very cool 16ºC.

The night-time temperatures were equally varied ranging from 4ºC to a muggy 16ºC.

 

July was also an unsettled month. The winds were mainly light and well-behaved, direction switching between the Southwest and Northwest for an even number of days. The exception to this was the 29 th when the wind speed rose towards the end of the day. My readings are all taken at 9 am to ensure uniformity but this means that I have no record of the wind speeds reached later in the day. I will try to take additional later readings in future but all I can say that about this date is that tornadoes appeared and they were devastating.

These high winds brought a lot of rain making the wet days very wet. Again, the downpours were local and some areas fared worse than others. An example of this is Wattisham, which recorded 44mm for the month, whilst nearby Ringshall had a massive 70mm. Epping in Essex could only manage 14mm and Bedford just squeezed 6mm. The graph for the month is almost identical in shape to that for June giving us the middle of the month to dry out before the terminal deluge.

Temperatures were mainly high with a steep dip near the end of the month to a chilly 14ºC. This came as a shock after the 30ºC recorded earlier. This always happens when I put my shorts on. Night-time temperatures were much steadier varying between 8ºC and 16ºC.

 

August was blustery with what seemed to be a constant north-westerly airstream.

The rain was more evenly spread through the month. I always understood that you could tell when it was summer in Britain because the rain was warmer and this was the case. Ideal growing conditions meant that instead of lawns turning brown to give us a holiday they stayed green and still needed to be cut. 67mm of rain fell over 15 days, with 17mm on the wettest day. The average rainfall in East Anglia for June, July and August is 150mm - I recorded 179mm. I was surprised to see that this was not so unusual for the month, in fact only 1995 with a total of 10mm and 2003 with a total of 2mm were markedly different.

Daytime temperatures varied a lot from a low of 16ºC and to a very warm high of 30ºC. I have looked back over the past ten years and found that this is a fairly normal fluctuation for the month.

Night-time temperatures held fairly steady but there was a steep climb at the end of the month to reach 15º C.

My daily summaries show that this was a fairly indifferent month and not ideal as the main holiday period. I have also started to record barometer readings and they varied from 1002 millibars to 1029 millibars.

 

September is the month that leads us into autumn. We picture sunny days and chilly nights. There were some chilly nights but generally it was a warm month with some really beautiful autumn days. However, the month came to a damp and cool end, which leads us to think that summer is really over.

The winds came mainly from the Southwest and at times were quite strong. I recorded gusts up to 15mph. We had more calm days than in the previous three months and on two days there was no breeze at all. Barometer readings ranged from 1000 –1018 millibars.

A dry start ended on the ninth day and rain was evenly spread thereafter. There were 13 wet days giving a total of 44.5mm. The daily average was 1.48mm.

Daytime temperatures were, mainly, quite pleasant and the average for the month was 20.5ºC which is slightly higher than the official average for the region.

Night-time temperatures held well and it came as a shock when one night saw a dramatic dip to 5ºC. This was general across the region and Wittering recorded the lowest temperature of 3ºC. The average temperature was a friendly 10.8ºC.

Over all the month was a pleasant finale to the summer and gave a hint that we may have a golden October. We’ll find out in the next Weatherfront!

 

Andrew Toomey

 

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