With areas of low pressure either over the UK or never far away, bringing a predominantly westerly flow, August was cooler and duller than the average and the coldest August since 1993.

   So August brings summer to an end and quite clearly this August has been colder than the average, certainly drier than other recent Augusts hereabouts, but how has summer as a whole faired?

   June was a warm month, July dull and wet and whilst August wasn't terrible it wasn't anything to write home about and in a way it just passed by without a shout or wimper - at least the bank holiday Monday was good this year.

   So it was a cold month, 1.23°c colder than August 2009, yet this August's highest temperature of 22.4°c was higher than that recorded in both the previous two August's. But then only three days attained 20.0°c compared to the seven of last year.

   The answer to the low mean temp' mainly lies in the cold nights, not so much the lack of warmth in the day. A mean Max' temp' of 17.74°c is OK (ish) but a mean Min' of 9.29°c is 2.25c°c down on last year. This is shown well in the last 10 days of the month when they all had a minimum temp' of below 10.0°c and the mean minimum for these 10 days was just 6.89°c.

   Also there was an unusaully high number (18) of nights with a minimum below 10.0°c.

   I should imagine that people's perception would be that August and also the summer were wet, I'm afraid that the facts don't really back this up. With just 199.8 mm of rain we have only had 58% of the average for the summers of 2007/08/09. Indeed July 2009 had more rain (200.2 mm) than the whole of this summer.

   59.0 mm of rain for the month isn't that much, but it came in dribs and drabs (apart form the 20th) over the month and we never had more than 2 successive days with no rain, possibly explaining why people may think August was wet.

   The month started with low pressure (998 Mb) near Iceland and which pushed a weak occluded front east. There wasn't too much sun about as we had either showers or light rain but the temperature held up reasonably well.

   By the 4th a low (1009 Mb) was developing over Eire and this was responsible for cloudy days and and more light rain and showers.

   The 8th and 9th saw reasonable days that were dry and gave us some sun. This was brough about by a ridge of high pressure as the low pressure from the previous days moved NE - but various Atlantic frontal systems were now approaching.

   The 10th saw heavy showers moving through giving 4.0 mm of rain and the next three days saw further rain, with the 13th having 7.8 mm.

   During this time an Azores high had slowly been building out in the Atlantic but it wasn't until the 14th that it began to truly establish itself to our benefit. The 14th was fine and sunny, likewise the 15th which brought the months warmest day at 22.4°c (72.32°F). The 16th after early fog was more of the same, but then low pressure in the Atlantic was starting to send fronts our way.

   The 17th was wet to start and light rain continued through the day and whilst the 18th was a quieter day the 19th was quite pleasant, but then rain arrived late on. The 20th was wet with heavy rain and strong winds gusting to 40 mph. 19.4 mm of rain fell from Mn - Mn on the 20th, 25.5 mm in total for the 19/20th. This was all on the back of low pressure (993 Mb) centred west of Eire pushing those rain bearing fronts our way.

   The 21st/22nd saw us in fresher but sunny conditions behind the low pressure as it moved away. But the 23rd saw another 9.0 mm of rain as a rapidly developing low covered SW of England with several mature occlusions lying across Northern Ireland and Scotland.

   After showers a.m. on the 24th (due to an unstable westerly flow from an area of low pressure (994 Mb) off Eire) the day and the rest of the month gradually improved. The 26/27th were fine days, we were in a slack area to the north of a significant and heavy belt of rain in the south.

   As previously mentioned the nights were now quite cool and whilst we didn't quite get a ground frost, the clear skies let temp's dip to 3.7°c on the 26/27th and it stayed very much this way upto the month's end.

   And so to the bank holiday. Saturday 28th was both cool, windy and wet, 2.2 mm of light rain. We were under the influence of a NW'ly flow which was coming down off the edge of a large anticyclone (high pressure) in the Atlantic.

   Sunday improved after early rain, but at 14.9°c it felt cool in a NNW'ly breeze. The cool theme carried onto into bank holiday Monday, but at least it was a sunny and fine day. Just like other bank holidays this year, an improving theme over the course of the weekend.

   The 31st was also a sunny day and the temp' picked up to 19.3°c - the cool but sunny weather was brought by the UK sitting inbetween high pressure to the west and low pressure over Denmark with the winds coming over and down the easterly edge of the high.

   And so summer draws to an end. Because July was so bad, despite the average temperatures there was a distinct lack of sun and the school holidays start in this month and its when people take their holidays, a glorious June is soon forgotton and because August never really got going with rain never far away, although not heavy, it could seem as though summer was poor. It wasn't, it was just very AVERAGE.

   The Mean Temperature for the month was 13.52°c+     - the Mean Max' was 17.74°c and the Mean Min' 9.29°c.

   We had 0 Air Frosts in the month (59 for 2010) and Grass frosts totalled 0 (93 for 2010).

  COMPARISONS:-

   * August 10 rainfall was 57.06% of the August average for 07/08/09

   * August 10 was 1.23°c colder than August 2009 +

   * August saw 15 rain days of which 9 were wet days.

   ** Summer 2010 saw 58% of the summer rainfall average for 2007-2009

  * The 3 month mean for June/July/August 2010 is                   TEMP'    13.97°c          -          RAIN    199.8 mm


  *                     June/July/August 2009 was                   TEMP'    14.34°c          -          RAIN    349.6 mm

  *                     June/July/August 2008 was                   TEMP'                     -          RAIN    325.2 mm

  


                                * 2010    TO DATE                   TEMP'     8.26°c          -          RAIN     373.2 mm

                                * 2009  Jan - Aug                   TEMP'     9.44°c          -          RAIN     760.3 mm

                                * 2008  Jan - Aug                   TEMP'                     -          RAIN     861.7 mm