By Mike Trigger

June was drier and slightly warmer than average.

June started with mostly high pressure and east or northeast winds before weak fronts and lower pressure brought patchy rain between the 4th and 8th. This was followed by the longest dry period of the month when higher pressure dominated and most days seeing afternoon temperature over 20 Celsius. Just before a cold front brought some rain on the 18th exceptionally warm air from Spain and France moved into southern parts of England. This produced one flaming June day when temperatures widely reached 30 Celsius reaching as high as 33 Celsius inland. There was another short dry period between the 20 and 23rd before SW winds and lower pressure again brought a little rain.

In terms of statistics:

The average temperature for June was around 15.5 Celsius, only fractionally above the 1981-2010 value. Temperatures rose above 20 Celsius on at least 18 days inland and 13 days near the coast and reached 25 Celsius inland on at least 3 days. The hottest day was the 17th when with only very light winds, inland temperatures reached over 30 Celsius. The coldest morning was on the 1st when the low was around 6 Celsius for most but as low as 2 Celsius in Netherton.

June rainfall totals across the district ranged from 25mm to 40mm which is roughly two thirds of the thirty-year average. There was a typical number of dry days (19) and days with 1mm or more of rain (7). The wettest day was on the 28th when around 10mm was recorded. Rainfall across SW England was more varied due to the showery nature of summer rain with some places, even as close as Exeter, seeing above average rain.

The strongest winds were on the 9th when a fairly deep low pressure moved over the West of Scotland and brough strong SW winds across the district.

Sunshine at around 220 hours was close to the average for June but sunnier than last year.