Its been a disappointing month if you are a lover of hot weather. Besides the first week of the month where the temperature over the country reached 30c regularly, it has been a much cooler air over the UK. With this cool weather it has scuppered the summer breaking records. It has turned out to be the 5th warmest summer since records began. The CET for the month is 16.6c which is 0.87c above average.
UK Stats
Over the UK the grass turned from brown to green with the waking up of the Atlantic. We still had influence of the Azores high pressure which had been dominating the summer. Thus in the south the temperatures were higher, in the northern part of the UK there was more rain which slowly spread SE especially during the 2nd half of the month.
The highest temperature was 33.2c in Kew Gardens (Greater London) on the 3rd. The lowest temperature -1.6c on the 7th at Braemar (Aberdeenshire). On the 13th it was very wet in Prestatyn (Clwyd) with 90mm of rain falling in 24hours. The windiest place had a 70mph gust of wind at Needles (Isle of Wight).
Watford Stats
The max temperature in Watford that I recorded was on the 6th with 33.7c, its looking like the last 30c of the year. The lowest day temperature was 17.2c on the 26th. The lowest night time temperature was 6.5c on the 10th. The rainfall picked up a lot from previous months with the highest monthly total since May of 57.6mm.
Summer 2018
The glorious summer of 2018 will be remembered like 1976 for a longtime to come. The non stop sunshine and heat has continued from the spring, making most people feel happy. But in the end it was the joint warmest in the UK since records began in the 1910. Read more soon on a separate blog.
Looking ahead to September
September is looking like a mild month, like all months since March this year but it will have some mild spells and depending on how the hurricane season goes in the Atlantic whether it will pump up heat into the mid latitudes. This will also invigorate the jet stream, it has been quiet for the last six months. Near the end of the month I think we will have a plunge of northerly winds and some places could have some snow!!
Summary for August 2018 in Watford
Temperature (°C):
Mean (1 minute) 18.2
Mean (min+max) 19.0
Mean Minimum 13.1
Mean Maximum 24.8
Minimum 6.5 day 10
Maximum 33.7 day 06
Highest Minimum 18.0 day 03
Lowest Maximum 17.2 day 26
Air frosts 0
Rainfall (mm):
Total for month 57.6
Wettest day 12.9 day 10
High rain rate 43.2 day 09
Rain days 11
Dry days 19
Wind (mph):
Highest Gust 13.0 day 03
Average Speed 0.2
Wind Run 155.5 miles
Gale days 0
Pressure (mb):
Maximum 1022.2 day 04
Minimum 996.3 day 26
Links
Met Office – https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/cet_info_mean.html
Met Office Summary – httpss://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/2018/july
Real time Watford Weather – https://weather.andrewlalchan.co.uk/
Flickr – httpss://www.flickr.com/photos/alalchan
Weather Outlook – httpss://www.theweatheroutlook.com/twocommunity/
July 2018 – httpss://blog.andrewlalchan.co.uk/watford-weather-july-statistics/
