audiotech

A lot of rain gone through the upper Thames valley in a 12hr period. Could see some flooding issues locally with the river already at the top of its banks before this rain event started. The River Ock was flooded over the Abingdon Tesco car park just last weekend for the 2nd time this year so that'll probably repeat again.

That’s a bit of an awkward rule for this situation. Though I can see it would normally work. There’s a 16C at Mildenhall just popped up now. It’s unpleasantly windy though.

Not even daylight yet and Rhyl has already broken the hottest Christmas Eve on record. 15.8C at 4am on the top 20 page.

Pennerley in Shropshire has recorded a daytime maximum of 11.2C yesterday (Saturday). It's not beaten the all-time English August record but could possibly be the coldest this century. I found a list of temperature extremes on the Met Office website which gives 8.9C from the year 1919 as the record low August daytime max.

Buxton taking a shot at the coldest English August day on record on Saturday with 11c max forecast. The current lowest I could find online was from a Mirror article: "According to The Met Office, the coldest late August Bank Holiday in England was recorded in Malham Tarn in northern Yorkshire in 1986 when temperatures reached 11.2C. Also in 1986, the record was set in Northern Ireland when maximum temperatures reached 10.4C in Parkmore Forest, and in Wales when temperatures reached a maximum 11.5C in Alwen. While Scotland, although not an official Bank Holiday, holds the UK record for the equivalent date in 2011 when max temperatures reached just 9.1C in Cromdale."

A daytime max of just 16C today (Saturday), some 8C below average for this period. That followed by a relatively mild night though as it is still 16C at 3am. The period 20th July - 10th August is the warmest average time of year locally at 23C. At the opposite end of the year a daytime max of 8C below average would be -1C here. Although in January such temperatures might well be accompanied by all day sunshine.

Porthmadog, Wales recorded 29.7C on Friday according to Met Office official station. Not quite the magic 30C though i'm sure somewhere will get there on Saturday. https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/observation

A bone chilling maximum of -22C forecast for Denver today. Similar latitude to Madrid.

Yes now the clouds have cleared you can see where the snow has accumulated. Was looking on SAT24 just now thought the white was freezing fog at first. I had a very light dusting here on Monday morning about 0.2cm, some of that is still persisting in shaded areas.

22.6C on the hourly observations for St James Park at 14:00. It may have gone a little higher on the intra hourly measurements. I think we can describe that as the 4th hottest late October day as it stands. It would have beaten the November record had it occured 3 days later. EDIT: 22.8C max for St James Park on the intra hourly measurement. Ties for the 3rd hottest late October day now.

Patchy cloud cover making for a much warmer night tonight by locking the heat in. Probably will be the same Monday night too. The easterly breeze with clear skies had been getting nights mostly down to low/mid teens by dawn so far this heatwave.

It was said that they were provisional readings on the news reports. I think Met Office are confident in the readings to report them as provisional to the media but want to take the time to double and triple check everything before writing it into the history books. Don't they have to send out officers to inspect all the measurement equipment when a new temperature record is set, I seem to remember that happened with Cambridge in 2019?

That answers my question about Benson - thanks. Hourly observation of 38.4C at 2pm, with an intra hourly max of 38.7C.

Front came through no rain fell, sun back out now. It cooled the air from exceptionally hot down to very hot. Unless the showers behind perk up a bit I think main change will just be quicker fall in temps after sunset. Does anyone know the maximum temperature for the Benson observation station, it got 38.4c at 2pm but just wondering if there is an intra hourly maximum anywhere?

We could just about be in record business with those 37s, going to be very close.