British Summers!

It was quite a day across the southern parts of the British Isles. A strong area of low pressure moved in from the continent bringing loads of rain and very strong winds. The storm brought quite a bit of disruption also.

The day started with the heavy band of rain from the low knocking on the doorsteps of southwest England. The wind soon picked up across southern England and the thicker cloud was already extending further north towards northern England. Across Northern Ireland and Scotland it was a mostly dry and bright day after quite a chilly start. The morning temperature in Altnaharra (Highland) dipped to 3C (37F). By lunchtime the band of heavy rain was draped across the south coast of England with very strong winds blowing across the region. The winds gusted over 50 mph in many places with some places on the south coast of England recording winds around 60 mph. These strong winds did bring down many trees across southern England from Devon across to Kent. There were also reports of power outages for over 10,000 people. The winds on the Brittany coast have been even stronger with afternoon gusts over 70 mph. The heavy rain did collect in the rain buckets and the highest total for the day was at Jersey (Channel Isles) with 28.9mm (1.14 inches).

Even with all the wind and rain is was still quite mild a few places. Thorney Island (West Sussex) climbed 23C (73F). Further north under a blanket of cloud for most of the day Fair Isle (between Orkney and Shetland) only reached 13C(54F). Scotland was still a good place to be for the bulk of the sunshine today. Tiree (Inner Hebrides) enjoyed 14.2 hours of sunshine today.

The wind and rain with this low are still going, so by tomorrow there could be a lot more to tell you about.