The early July statistics (1st -28th) show a stark contrast in the UK between parts of the north and south as far as rainfall is concerned.

St Catherine’s Point, on the Isle of Wight, recorded only 1.4 mm of rain, currently the station’s driest July on record. Meanwhile the month saw some very wet weather in the northwest, with Stornoway Airport recording 140.0 mm (87% above average) ranking it currently as its 3^rd wettest July on record (wetter years being 1939 with 143.7 mm and 1988 with 164.5 mm).

Despite the general perception by many that we are having a bad summer overall it is currently the 6^th driest July on record for south east and central south England (19.8 mm) with much of southern England seeing less than 20 mm of rain this month.

However although it has been dry for many it has been dull with sunshine amounts below normal for many.  This followed on from a rather dull June.

Despite a cooler start to the month (with nowhere in the UK reaching 25 °C at any time during the first fortnight), things began to warm up from the 16th onwards, leading into the hottest spell of weather this year so far, with sunnier skies, and temperatures reaching 33.5 °C at Brize Norton on the 19th.

The “heatwave” was relatively short lived however with a return to a mix of sunshine and showers as we moved towards the end of the month.

The rather cloudy days and below average sunshine levels might have left the impression of a poor month weatherwise, but in actual fact temperatures so far have been marginally above average, although the slightly warmer nights have helped keep the mean figures (24 hour temperatures totals) around average.  For southern England at least rainfall has been very low with west Scotland and the Western Isles having the worst of the rain.

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