The glorious sunshine on Sunday raised the temperature to a maximum of 17.4C at 14.16 before cloud drifted across late afternoon. This high was a significant 6.4C above my long-term average and made it the warmest day since 17th October (17.4C).
Overnight the cloud continued to drift across, becoming thicker and lower, thanks to a large depression off the Iberian coast. As a result it limited the loss of warmth into the atmosphere so the minimum of 8.0C, logged at 06.45 early Monday, was 5.3C ave the average.
The warmth and sunshine on Sunday resulted in an equivalent loss of rainfall of 2.03mm, due to evaporation from ground sources and plant life, the highest this month, taking the toll loss for March to 14.6mm when the last nine days have seen no precipitation, a very dry start to the new month.
The rain radar on Monday morning showed a broken batch of thick cloud drifting across our area from northern France and associated with the depression off the Iberian coast, arriving just before 05.00. Spots of rain were observed just after 06.00 with light rain noted at 07.30.
A cold front is currently passing over the north of Scotland, by midday it is forecast to have moved south over northern England and by midnight will have arrived over southern England. Behind the front is the much colder air that will have travelled from around Greenland. This colder air, brought on a northeasterly airstream, will be with us for most of the week. As a result, maxima will be depressed and most likely be a couple of degrees below average with an accompanying wind chill.