Amport Weather Notes

Weather Notes

No settled weather yet

This year has seen a long drawn out spring with predominantly cool weather and a greater than average rainfall. The six key months for replenishing the underground water levels, October to March, were in fact about 2½ inches below the average, but this has been more than made up by 3½ inches falling in May and more in early June (the 11 days starting on 23 May gave us just under 4½ inches), so farmland and gardens have had good growing weather. Now lets hope for some warmth for the rest of the summer. DJSW July 2008

Summer – What Summer ?

We’ve certainly had a basin-full of rain recently – the wettest July (4.98 inches) in 18 years and already over 2½ inches for the first half of August. There were a few warm days at the end of July, the 28^th being the hottest (28.9ºC / 84ºF), but since then the temperatures have rarely topped 23ºC / 73ºF, and the wind has resolutely stayed south-westerly, bringing cool moist air with it. Last night (14^th) the temperature fell to a very low 7.0ºC / 44ºF. Blame global warming if you like, or merely put it down to the unreliable nature of an English summer. DJSW Sept 2008

Rainfall in 2008

Rainfall as measured in East Cholderton in 2008 amounted to 39.8 inches, about 5 inches above the recent yearly average. No single month was responsible for any large amount, though July, with 4.98 inches – nearly all of this in only 10 days – was the wettest.

Unusually, we had over 2 inches of rain in every month of the year except for February, so the ground remained wet and muddy for much of the year. Dry spells of up to a fortnight occurred in February, May and in the latter half of July and September, but by and large it was a wet year in this part of Southern England, as it was throughout the whole Country. DJSW Feb 2009

Winter Weather – a bit of everything

The first three months of the year were characterised by much colder weather than in recent years, with a total of 32 night frosts (to add to the 14 in the last 3 months of 2008), the lowest temperature recorded in East Cholderton being –7.5°C (19°F) on the night of 6^th January. Snow fell on the night of 1^st February – only about 2 inches here – and although more fell on the next four nights, cold rain by day packed it down and partially thawed it so that there was never more than 4 inches of snow on level ground, and the last of it had gone by 12^th February. By that date, the first six weeks of the year had already given us over 7 inches of rain, but the next 6 weeks, to the end of March, were unusually dry with only 1.66 inches. This dry spell continued into the first week of April and, with fine warm weather and the temperature up to 16.5°C (62°F), hardly surprisingly, gardens and farmland became very parched, so the rain just before Easter was very welcome. DJSW May 2009

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