June was 'drier than average' says Sandy

IT may not come as a surprise to you to discover this but June was a drier month than average.

But it may be a shock to discover just how little rain fell over the last month.

Only 44ml of precipitation fell throughout the whole of June and this month looks as though it could go in a similar manner, despite the recent heavy downpours.

Sandy Ferguson, who takes manual readings at the Katesbridge CDL (climate data logger) office which is attached to the Met Office headquarters in Exeter, explained, "It has been an exceptionally dry month.

"Any of the farmers around here will tell you that it has affected the grass growing. In fact I cut the grass around the station and nothing has happened yet.

"The fields around Katesbridge have been brown for the last while, we definitely need the rain to come."

Sandy's figures come after Armagh Observatory announced that the mean monthly temperature was 15.5 degrees Celsius (59.9 degrees Fahrenheit), that is nearly two degrees Celsius above the average for June. The maximum temperature recorded was 23.6 degrees C on the summer solstice (June 21). The minimum air temperature was 5.6 C (20th).

The number of hours of sunshine was 184.1, that is slightly over 10% above the average.

The trend looks set to continue as despite the odd downpour over the last couple of weeks the weather looks like remaining dry for the next few weeks.

"I would take recordings every morning of the previous day's downfall and so far it's been looking fairly dry again," Sandy added.

"There was just 2.6ml of rain on July 1st, 1.6ml on July 3 and only 0.6ml the next day and it looks as though there'll be more of the same over the next while."

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