The quiet, calm conditions continued on Thursday with the moist, warm air trapped under the high pressure dome that produced the thick fog. Initially the visibility was down to 200m but just before 08.30 that dropped to 100m. By 10.00 the fog began to slowly lift but not clear completely until just before midday. The bright sunshine for a couple of hours lifted the thermometer to 14.4C at 15.03, just below the 40-year average. During the evening the temperature again began to fall steadily away with a minimum of 5.6C being 1.8C below average.
Friday revealed another cloudy start to a new day but thankfully no fog with the cloud base much higher.
The large area of high pressure continues to produce calm, dry conditions with what air movement there is now coming from the northwest for much of the day.
October 2024 review
After a damp, dreary and very cool start to the new month an anticyclone developed to the north of Scotland that gave us two dry and sunny days on the 3rd and 4th.
The following week brought very wet conditions with considerable rainfall on the 6th to the 8th with 12.5mm, 10.6mm and a significant 23.9mm, respectively.
By the 9th there was a major change in the weather pattern as the wind veered int othe northwest and then north bringing a much cooler air stream that gave a maximum of just 11.7C on the 10th, which was the coolest day since 27th April. That was followed by a cold night that saw the thermometer drop to -0.4C producing not only a ground frost but the first air frost of the season.
A very wet and unsettled period arrived on the 12th with significant rainfall on several days. Three days brought us dull and dreary weather with continuous thick, low cloud and misty conditions, with little wind and fog on the 15th that limited visibility to 300 meters until late morning.
A large area of high pressure built and extended over the UK from the 22nd bringing dry and quiet weather with the breeze very light for several days. The peak barometric pressure occurred on the 23rd with a high of 1032.7mb, the highest since 17th September when the exact same peak was recorded. This anticyclone brought warm, moist air from Spain and the Bay of Biscay.
Another very large area of high pressure eased in from the Atlantic on the 29th bringing very calm, quiet weather. However, there was minimal sunshine because the air mass had travelled over extensive sea areas collecting moisture, which was trapped under the high-pressure dome. There were three days of minimal air movement with the maximum air movement of just 9mph.
The average temperature for the month was 0.3C above my 40-year average, principally due to slightly higher daytime peaks. It was the coolest October since 2020.
Once again, the monthly rainfall total was above my 40-year average with 101.6mm being + 10.6mm, however, it was the driest October since 2018. Only June and August in 2024 gave us below average rainfall totals. The rainfall total for the ten months of January to October stands at 972mm when the long-term average is 678mm.
Due to the numerus days with overcast skies, it was not surprising to find that the average UV level for the month of 1.9 was well below my fifteen-year average of 3.4. That means it was at the top end of ‘Low’ and not in the middle of the ‘Moderate’ category.
