Mild spell continues

Note for Sunday 22nd
The mild spell of weather continues as a series of Atlantic low pressure systems cross the country.

From 2009 November weather

Note for Saturday 21st
The day started dull and misty. The overnight temperature back to around the seasonal average. Continued dull with outbreaks of rain in the afternoon.
Note for Friday 20th
Gale force winds relented overnight and the heavy rain forecast at one time didn’t materialise. Cockermouth in Cumbria has serious flooding problems. There are news reports of around 300mm of rainfall there in one day. Click here for more on this rainfall. That amounts to the average rainfall for Wakefield for our wettest 6 months of the year. I can’t image getting that amount of rain in one day!
I thought a trip down to the plot was needed today to see if the windy weather had caused any damage on the plot. I could see as we entered through the gates that our shed & greenhouse were at least still in their correct locations. A closer inspection confirmed both buildings had survived the gales with no damage. We were fortunate that only our enviromesh had been blown off our carrots.

From 2009 November weather

This was quickly replaced but using a few extra bricks to hold it down as I’m sure we’ll have much more windy weather this winter.

Note for Thursday 19th
Strong to gale force winds all day today but no rain. Severe flooding problems in Cockermouth, Cumbria reported on national TV.
The wind was from a southerly direction giving us the warmest day and night of the month.
Note for Wednesday 18th
Gale force winds in the early hours of the morning followed by rain. The Environment Agency has issued a flood watch alert on some part of the river Calder. Click here for details. More heavy rain forecast for Friday & Saturday.
Note for Tuesday 17th
Sunny and mild for much of the day. Clouded over late afternoon with light rain as darkness fell.
Note for Monday 16th
November is making up for the dry months of September and October. Today’s rainfall took us past the seasonal average for November.

Now I’ve started keeping temperature records I was giving some thought as to what temperatures I really need to know as a gardener. Certainly daily minimum temperatures are vital to me as a gardener. The first and last frost dates govern the planting and growing of many vegetable crops in my area. Cold nights can stop some crops from growing or at very least give them a set back and delay or even ruin anticipated harvests.

I’m not sure how valuable the daily maximum temperature is to me. I don’t think any crops on the plot have died due to heat – wilted a bit maybe but have always recovered. It’s more of an indication of fine weather. As I’ve got my new weather station set up to give me a record of temperatures every hour I thought I should be able to make better use of this data. I think an average of these 24 temperatures recorded each day to give an average daily temperature should be interesting. It should represent the growing temperature for most of the day.

So I’ve replaced wind speed with the average daily temperature in chart 1 – so this chart now only deals with temperature records whilst chart 2 deals with rainfall records.