You may have seen the news release from the Met Office announcing that “Summer 2024’s average mean temperature of 14.37°C for the UK is considered ‘cooler’ when compared to the 1991-2020 current meteorological average of 14.59°C.” But don’t be fooled – this is for the UK as a whole, and when you look into the regional variations you find that in our region, the average mean temperature was recorded as between 0.5-1.5°C above the average.

And so it proved with us in Epping. During our summer (June to August in the Met Office’s definition), the mean temperature was 17.6°C, compared with our long term average of 16.8°C, and the seventh warmest summer in our 40 years of records.

As for August alone, the mean temperature was also the seventh warmest in our records at 17.6°C. The warmest day was the 12th at 34.0°C, beaten only in 2003 and 2020, and even our minimum for the month of 10.1°C on the 25th was higher than all but three past Augusts. That makes it now 13 months in a row where the temperature has been warmer than the long term average.

But it was a dry month. The total rainfall was just 19.9mm, compared with our average for August of 56.6mm, making this our fifth driest August. It rained on only eight days, with the wettest day being the 24th with a modest 7.8mm rain.

Unsurprisingly, with warm, dry, settled weather predominating, the air pressure remained largely on the high side.

The only notable low pressure in the month was associated with Storm Lilian, which mainly affected north-west Britain and delivered us our only significant rain of the month over the 23rd to 25th, as well as the strongest winds of the month.

Finally to the sunshine – the most important ingredient for school holidays! It was indeed a pleasantly sunny month, with only three sunless days.