Dry start to September for many

You may think September has been a wet month so far but according to early provisional Met Office statistics, the month has started out drier and sunnier than average for many across the UK.

However the picture has been varied, some parts of southern and eastern England have already had over three quarters of their whole-month average rainfall for September. While northern and western areas have been drier, with little in the way of rain so far for much of Northern Ireland and Scotland away from eastern coasts.

Figures up to 16^th September show there has been almost 30mm of rain across the UK, which is just 31% of the September average of 96mm. We would normally expect about half of the average monthly rainfall to have fallen by this point in the month. While there has been almost 72 hours of sunshine, 58% of the monthly average of 125 hours, with some north-western areas being especially sunny so far this month.

Looking at individual countries, Scotland has been the driest with almost 21mm of rain, 15% of average, followed by Northern Ireland with almost 24mm of rain, 26% of average. England is the wettest country so far with almost 34mm 49% of average.  There was a dry anticyclonic spell for the UK lasting from 5th until 11th, since then there have been some noticeable falls of rain.

The UK mean temperature so far has been 12.2C, which is 0.4C below the full-month average.

While these figures are interesting, they don’t tell us where the month will end up overall. A few days of wet or cold weather could drastically alter the statistics, so we’ll have to wait for the full-month figures before making any judgements.

© Met Office