Here is my latest weather resumé for August and also the three Summer months.
August 2014.
The dry, warm and settled weather patterns that had
predominated through the first two months of the summer broke down in August. The month fell into four quite distinct weather types. August 1-9, some heavy falls of rain, but with temperatures generally above average. 9-17, initially stormy and thereafter showery and cooler. 18-24, dry with a cool NW airstream which gave exceptionally low night time temperatures, and the final week, with wet weather and mild nights. The calendar and weather changed together, with a
significant rainfall of 16.4mm on the 1st, whilst the 5th with 23.8mm recorded more than the entire month of July. Thereafter two warm days, both with highs of 24.7C gave us the month’s warmest afternoons. This
unremarkable figure has been exceeded in every August since 2008.
The sea temperature was approaching 20C by the end of
July, which was the highest it had been since 2006, and this could be a contributory reason for several heavy falls of rain in August. Certainly the arrival of the remnants of Hurricane Bertha on the night of 9-10th
ushered in not only more rain, but wind aswell. This was strong enough for me to suffer two broken tree branches in the garden. Heavy showers followed on each day during the ensuing week, before the wind changed
direction and brought arctic air a long way south. The lengthening nights cooled and minima of 5.3C (20th), 4.7C (21st) and the lowest 4.3C (24th) were memorable and record breaking. Possibly low enough too to
check the growth of the runner beans, which means that the season will be shorter than normal this year. August as a whole was the coolest since 2011.
A change of wind direction brought three more very wet
days between the 24th-27th, with the highest total on 25th with 27.8mm. The month’s rainfall came out at 139.2mm, with 17 days recording measurable falls. This figure was very high for August, but this month was not as wet as that of August 2012.
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Summer 2014 will probably be considered a ‘good’ summer when we look back, as the weather in early September seems to be wanting to re-establish the happy memories of warm and dry conditions we
experienced earlier on. My average figure for the temperature came out about 0.5C higher than that of 2013, but against that I must apply the corrected minimum figures that make my readings at night less cool. Certainly, daytime maxima averaged out 0.5C lower this year than last.
Rainfall totals had 2013 and 2014 running at the same dry level until August came along. The total for the three months this year–208.5mm was just about double that of 2013 and probably just over what we should
reasonably expect for the summer months.
Peter at Pottlelake
