Monday, 24 June 2019
Planting Out Before The Rain
We've had plenty of rain this month and from planting and weeding last week I knew our ground was fairly wet, really on the limit for planting and sowing. The weather forecast for Sunday night and early Monday morning was for thunderstorms accompanied by torrential rain with 75mm (3in) falling in a matter of hours.
Broccoli - Rudolph & Cauliflower - Clapton
We decided to pull out all the stops and get our remaining brassica plants into the ground. Any heavy rain was going to make our ground unworkable. Sue was in charge of planting whilst I sorted out the protection. On our plot it is pointless planting out brassica plants and leaving them uncovered as pigeon fodder. They've even taken to attacking our dahlia flowers this year. Some hoops were already in place for the broccoli and cauliflower plants but they needed erecting for a batch of cabbage plants going into a new brassica bed.
Cabbage - Kilaton
Once planted all the plants were covered with environmesh. There was time to plant out some lettuce seedlings where winter onions and garlic had been lifted. Once again some protection measure had to be put in place using some coppiced hazel poles and old pieces of chicken wire.
Lettuce - Great Lakes, Mixed Varieties & Salad Bowl Onions Radar & Senshyu Yellow
It was a busy afternoon but at least we'd got everything that was ready for planting out in the ground. Of course you can probably guess the punch line that is coming and that is, of course, that the thunderstorms and rain never materialised. We did have a little bit of overnight rain amounting to 0.6mm or 0.02in.
The forecast is for some hot weather this week which should see our hottest day of the year which currently stands at 24.6°C or 76.3°F dating way back to the 21st April. Of course the hot weather might turn out to be like last night's rainfall.
Friday, 28 June 2019
Finally, Some Warmth
A week ago some weather models were suggesting that yesterday (Thursday) would, not only be the warmest day of the year, but in my case the hottest day my weather station has recorded over the last 10 years. Needless to say that forecast changed over the past week. In the end the forecast on Thursday morning still suggested that Thursday, if not the warmest of the last 10 years, might well be the warmest day of this year, with the temperature reaching 24°C (75.2°F) in the afternoon.
Temperature Record for 27 June 2019
Rather amazingly as we come to the end of June our warmest day of the year goes back to 21 April when the temperature reached 24.6°C (76.3°F) as today's temperature only made it to 22.6°C or 72.7°F. It is also worth noting that the overnight temperature fell to 6.5°C (43.7°F) a record low for my weather station this late into June. It now looks like we'll have to wait for Saturday to break the record when the temperature is forecast to hit 31°C or 87.8°F.
However, one record is certain. June will become the wettest month of the year as the total for the month already stands at 85.0mm or 3.35in.
Cauliflower - Helsinki (through some very wet environmesh)
It will take over the record from March when we had 78.0mm or 3.07in.
Sunday, 30 June 2019
One Day Heatwave Brings the Hottest day of the Year
After what seemed an awful lot of weather hype, Saturday became our hottest day of the year with the temperature topping out at 29.4°C (84.9°F) late in the afternoon. A coincidence is that last year on the 29th June the temperature also reached 29.4°C (84.9°F)but we were already well into that lovely summer and it wasn't the warmest day of the year either as we'd already cleared the 30°C(86°F) mark earlier in the month.
Temperature Records 01-July 2018 to 30 June 2019
It's the hottest day we've had since the end of July last year when the temperature reached 32.2°C (90.0°F) on the 26 July 2018. Last June was a very dry month, unlike this June when we've had 85.0mm (3.35in) of rain, making it the wettest month of the year and the wettest since February 2018 when we had 104.0mm or 4.09in.
Sunday morning has seen a return to normal temperatures for late June with no more hottest days in the forecast.