Weather: Weather Watch

October really was an extraordinary month, but the high pressure area that has been dominating our weather over the past week will crumble away in a day or two.

On 1 October, a temperature of 26C was recorded inEssex, while at the end of the month, Buckinghamshire registered a temperature of minus 8. That 34-degree range emphasises what an extraordinary month it was. In some parts of the country, night-time temperatures at the end of the month were as much as 14 degrees below the average for the time of year.

The fact that both the hot weather at the start of the month and the cold at the end were sustained by linhering high pressure systems meant that both were associated with clear skies and more sunlight than usual. In the month as a whole, the country had an average 130 hours of sunchine compared with an expected figure of 100 hours. The southeast saw fifty percent more sunshine than usual.

As normal south-westerly winds replace the cold easterlies we have been having, we can expect more rain and warmer nights in the early part of this month. But do not forget that November is, as well as being frequently the wettest month of the year, also an average of four degrees colder than October.