August summary

Most of August has been fairly unsettled, in the sense that the pressure has been low and the skies have been blessed with a lot of interesting cloud formations. The main lack this month was rain. What rain we did get came mainly in the form of the occasional shower, but the monthly total is only about half the normal. Having said that, the 'normal' value for August has been skewed by a couple of very wet Augusts in 2004 and 2008, so the total this year is more in line with the other non-deluge years.

What has been noticeable in the last couple of weeks is a pronounced cooling trend. Usually, the temperature in August remains fairly constant throughout the month, with autumnal cooling beginning around mid-September. August this year looks to be about a full degree below normal, even after my updating of the normal values to include the full station record up to 2010.

It's probably a tad early to say whether the year's maximum temperature has come and gone, since September sometimes has a warm day or two in its first week. However, since the maximum temperature this year was 26.3 C set back in May, it's highly unlikely we'll see anything that high from now on. If that stands, this will be the first year on record where the year's highest temperature did not occur during the summer. Bizarre indeed.