Tuesday continued the recent trend of dull and dreary days under thick, low cloud brought across the UK on a northeasterly air stream. It was another cold day with the thermometer struggling to reach a maximum of 4.1C, logged at 14.59, being a significant 4.2C below the long-term average. The temperature fell slowly to hover around 2.8C all night with the lowest temperature of 2.4C set in the last twenty-four hours logged at 08.00 on Tuesday morning.
Once again, due to the thick cloud acting as a blanket to minimise loss of warmth into the atmosphere at night and with no sunshine to raise the temperature, the diurnal range, difference between maximum and minimum, was just 1.7C. One significant feature was the lack of any strong wind gusts, just a light breeze that gave an average speed of between 1 and 2mph all day and night with just one incident of 14mph at 02.15.
Not surprisingly, under the persistent dull conditions, there was no UV light logged all day, the second time this month.
Wednesday started as previous days under thick low cloud with the anemometer only slowly turning and in low, single figures. The humidity logged at 08.00 was 89.3%, the lowest for a week, so I hope this might mean the cloud thins a little during the daytime.
The recent depression is only slowly edging away eastwards, now off the dutch coast, and combined with the northeasterly airflow continuing the cloud cover from the moist and cool airstream. The battle between the anticyclone and depression is stalemate as the barometric pressure dropped just 0.3mb in the last twenty-four hours. The forecast is for the depression to continue easing away, but only very slowly eastwards, that will maintain the thick cloud for today and likely on Thursday.
Snow Moon
February’s full moon is called the Snow Moon and this year it will reach its peak at 1.53pm today. The best time to spot the full moon was last night or tonight, but probably not likely under the cloud cover! The so-called Snow Moon is named after the abundant snowfall the Northern Hemisphere often gets during February. In the UK, February is the snowiest month with an average of 5.6 snow days compared with 5.3 days in January and 4.2 days in March.