• August air temperature ranged between 22.6°C and 38.7°C
• The month’s sunniest day clocked up 12.8 hours of sunshine
• August marked the end of a drier-than-average precipitation year 2019/2020

A LOOK AT AUGUST WEATHER

The meteorological summer was brought to a close by a warmer-than-average August, during which the month’s climatic mean maximum temperature of 31.7°C was exceeded on 19 days.

August’s air temperature ranged between a minimum of 22.6°C and a maximum of 38.7°C, recorded on the fifteenth day of the month. The sea too was warmer than expected at this time of year, with the mean surface temperature surpassing the climate norm of 26.1°C by 1.9°C.

A mean cloud cover of 0.9 oktas, which is less than the norm for the month, made for clear skies throughout August. The month was brightened by 352.3 hours of summer sunshine, which total went over the sunshine quota for August by 17 hours.

With 12.8 hours of sunshine measured, the fifth day of August was the month’s sunniest. On the same day, a maximum gust of 29 knots blowing from a west by north-west direction was also recorded.

The average wind speed maintained throughout the month was of 7.4 knots, which was slightly stronger than the norm of 6.5 knots.

A DRY AUGUST BRINGS THE PRECIPITATION YEAR (01.09.2019 – 31.08.2020) TO A CLOSE

August produced no rain, becoming the driest month of the precipitation year 2019/2020. Precipitation collected during this 12-month period amounted to 384.4mm, or 68% of the rainfall that is typically expected. Twenty-eight per cent of this total was collected in November 2019, making it the wettest month of the precipitation year.

November was followed by three significantly dry months – December 2019 (51.2mm), January 2020 (15.0mm), and February 2020 (0.6mm) – cumulatively producing just 66.8mm of rainfall. February, in fact, went down on record as the driest February since 1923.

The months of March, April and May, which constitute the meteorological spring, partly made up for the dry winter months experienced. Producing a cumulative total of 85.4mm of rainfall, these months were 27% wetter than the mean.

The start of the new precipitation year 2020/2021 has been particularly wet, with an average of 95.9mm of rainfall measured in the first 17 days of September.