The weather in June proved to be what we hope for and expect from a summer month. The mean temperature of 15.8C was 1.1C above the 30-year average. This was not as warm as in June 2006, which had a mean of 16.6C, but decidedly better than June in 1991 which had a mean of just 12.4C and much rain (122mm). It was the warmest June since 2007 and the sixth warmest I have recorded.
The total rainfall was 37.5mm, which is 66 per cent of the 30-year average and 19mm below the mean. For comparison, the wettest June was in 1998, which produced 143mm and the driest was in 1995 that brought only 13mm. There were 21 dry days and the wettest day on the 13th gave a total precipitation of 11.3mm. Due to the very wet months at the beginning of the year the precipitation for the first six months of 2014 is the highest I have recorded being a total of 638mm, this beats the previous record of 551mm set in 2007.
Due to the limited rainfall and many warm, dry days, the evapotranspiration totalled 102mm. This is the equivalent water vapour that escapes into the atmosphere from plant material, the ground and water surfaces. This produced a deficit of 65mm of equivalent rainfall.
The solar energy for June was the highest since June 2010.
Although we had much global sunshine, the maximum ultra violet radiation reached an index of 9.0 (on a scale of 0 – 10), less than 2011 (10.4) and 2013 (10.1). However, the average for June was the highest for three years just beating the 2011 average. The direct sunshine total for June was 141.7 hours. This result was from a newly installed instrument so no comparison can be made with previous years.
