Warm and dry

ALL readers will be aware that it has been a hot and dry summer but just how hot? With more than 200 hours of sunshine, maximum temperatures throughout August were consistently over 20C and, on two occasions, over 30C.

The mean maximum was 24.5C, two degrees above the 30-year average. The mean minimum temperature of 11C was about normal, although it dropped to 4.2C on August 22, and was in single figures on 10 nights.

It seemed that August was going to be the driest on record until the end of the month when 20mm fell in four days. The total for the month of 23mm was still less than half of the average. My thanks to Denis Gilbert, of Shiplake, for the statistics.