By Philip Eden

The absence of southwesterly and westerly winds – normally the most common wind directions over the British Isles – is perhaps the most remarkable feature of our weather during 2003. October did not buck the trend: there were only four days with westerlies and none with a southwesterly, compared with 19 days when the wind blew from either north or east. This gave the month its unusual character – cold, sunny, and (until the last week) very dry.

Mean maximum temperature ranged from 15.2°C; at Bournemouth to 9.3°C at Lerwick in Shetland, while the mean minimum ranged from 11.2°C at St Mary’s in the Isles of Scilly to 1.7°C at Shap in Cumbria. All districts reported temperature levels around 0.5–1.5 degC below the average for the standard reference period 1971-2000. The Central England Temperature (CET) for October, which incorporates both daytime and night-time readings, was 9.5°C, the lowest since 1993. In the last 100 years there were 25 colder Octobers, one with the same temperature, and 74 warmer ones.

There were a number of warm days during the first half of the month, and on the 2nd the temperature reached 22.1°C at Saunton Sands in north Devon. After mid-month it became much colder; Carterhouse in the Scottish Borders logged a maximum of just 2.7°C on the 21st, and the follo wing night the mercury plummeted to –6.9°C at Shap. Coldest weather transferred to southern Britain on the 22nd when Liscombe on Exmoor reported a maximum of 4C accompanied by a near-gale force easterly wind. The same day, Exeter’s high of 6C was the lowest in October there since at least 1974.

A large part of England had very little rain until the 28th, and the month’s rainfall totals remained generally well below normal in spite of October’s very wet end. Averaged over England and Wales, rainfall stood at 64mm, some 20 per cent below the long-term mean and the lowest since 1995. In the last 100 years, 23 Octobers were drier and 77 were wetter. The three months August to October delivered just 122mm of rain, barely half the normal amount, and the driest such period since 1972.

At a local level October’s rainfall ranged from 170.0mm at Portree on Skye to 11.9mm at Drumburgh in Cumbria. Percentages varied between 174 at St Catherine’s Point on the Isle of Wight to just 14 at Drumburgh.

It was a very sunny October although, contrary to some reports, no national records were broken. Averaged over England and Wales, the sun shone for 135 hours, 31 per cent above normal, placing it after 1921 (41 per cent above),1959 (+39 per cent), 1919 (+37 per cent), 1997 (+35 per cent) and 1971 (+34 per cent). In both Scotland and Northern Ireland it was the sunniest October since 1998. More parochially, sunshine totals for the month ranged from 167 hours at Hastings in East Sussex to 89 hours at Hillsborough, near Belfast; perce ntages varied between 174 at Lerwick in Shetland and 96 at Aldergrove airport in County Antrim.

(c) Philip Eden