October has been a mild & dry month, there has hardly been any frosts across the country. Mostly the winds have been coming from a southerly direction, warm at this time of the year. There was a brief northerly at the end of the month which in Watford gave us a ground frost on the 29th. More on the Watford stats are below.
The Central England Temperature (CET) which is the worlds longest weather data set came out at 12.35c around 1.8c above the long term average. For most of the month it was well above 2c above the average but only dipped in the last few days.
Major weather events that occurred during the month was the ex hurricane Ophelia which touched our shores and brought us up some warmth and strong winds for Ireland. Plus an unusual red sun which occurred because of Sahara sand and smoke from Portuguese fires being dragged up on the southerly winds.
Watford Stats
The highest temperature I recorded on my weather station was 21.9c on the 16th with the lowest 1.5c on the 29th. It has been a mild month in Watford. The rainfall has been below average with only 17.7mm falling most of which fell in the last week. Up until the 20th 4.2mm had fallen.
UK Stats
Overall the highest temperature was in Manston, Kent which had a high of 23.5c on the 16th as a result of ex hurricane Ophelia. The lowest temperature -5.0c was in Tulloch Bridge in Scotland on the 30th from the arctic air that came down on a northerly. Over the UK as a whole it was the 8th warmest October on records which go back to 1910. The highest wind was 90mph at Aberdaron and Capel Curig in Gwynedd on 16th.
Looking ahead to November
Looking forward it seems to be a mild start to the month with a few bands of rain coming up from the south in the first week. In around 10 days it is looking that a pattern change will occur where northerly winds might be covering the UK. But this is a long way off so it could change, I would give the cold weather about a 40% risk. All the background signals are pointing to a continuation of the mild weather.
Watford Stats – Summary for October 2017
Temperature (°C):
Mean (1 minute) 12.6
Mean (min+max) 12.9
Mean Minimum 9.2
Mean Maximum 16.5
Minimum 1.5 day 29
Maximum 21.9 day 16
Highest Minimum 15.2 day 13
Lowest Maximum 12.7 day 31
Air frosts 0
Rainfall (mm):
Total for month 17.7
Wettest day 6.3 day 18
High rain rate 7.2 day 11
Rain days 13
Dry days 18
Wind (mph):
Highest Gust 15.9 day 16
Average Speed 1.6
Wind Run 738.8 miles
Gale days 0
Pressure (mb):
Maximum 1043.3 day 27
Minimum 1003.8 day 19
Links
Met Office – https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/cet_info_mean.html
Real time Watford Weather – https://weather.andrewlalchan.co.uk/
Flickr – httpss://www.flickr.com/photos/alalchan
Weather Outlook – httpss://www.theweatheroutlook.com/twocommunity/
September 2017 – https://blog.andrewlalchan.co.uk/watford-weather-september-2017-statistics/
