Saturday was a very pleasant, dry day after the passage of Storm Eowyn with light winds but only average temperatures by day. Just before midday thin cloud was observed drifting cross the sky and thickening before 13.00 reducing the strength of the sun, turning it weaker and hazy after strong sunshine all morning. Thus the day maximum of 7.8C occurred at 12.48 before the thicker cloud arrived being 0.6C above my 4-year average. The UV level rose at its peak to 0.8, still in the low category, but it is still January although it was equal highest this month with that logged on the 16th.
During the early evening the thermometer steadily fell away to reach a low of 1.1C at 21.08. After that time more thicker cloud arrived ahead of the next storm that saw the thermometer slowly recover to reach 5.0C at 08.00 on Sunday. There were a couple of light showers between 02.30 and 03.45 amounting to 1.0mm that took the monthly total to 70.5mm when the long-term average for January is 89.6mm.
As the depression approaches the wind will swing from predominantly southwest yesterday to mostly southeast today. The rain radar at 08.00 showed a very wide rain band with heavy rain currently moving across the west country and forecast to arrive here between 10.00 ad 11.00.
The radar shows another depression has developed in the eastern Atlantic that the Spanish Met Office have named Storm Herminia. This is currently heading for Ireland later today and then moving across to middle England. The wind has been slowly rising since 06.45 and will get very strong as the morning progresses. The barometric pressure has dropped again ahead of the storm with a reading of 998.7mb at 08.00, down a modest 6 mb since yesterday, but is currently falling rapidly, as the depression closes in, that had a centre pressure of 957mb at midnight but forecast to deepen further to 952mb by midday.
