If you were in Epping in September, you don’t need telling it was wet. In fact it was the eighth wettest September in our 40 years of records, and the 18 days on which it rained has only been exceeded four times. The total of 98.6mm was actually 166% of our long term average of 59.4mm. In fact the first two thirds of the month were unexceptional, but in the last nine days we received 77.2mm. So with three months of the year still to go, we are less than 30mm of rain away from our average annual rainfall!

The temperatures were very up and down. The highest temperature of the month was 27.5°C on the 1st, which was the 11th warmest maximum for September in our records, and was followed on the 2nd by our third warmest overnight minimum of 17.4°C. However it got much cooler later in the month, with the lowest day maximum of 12.8°C on 27th and the minimum the following night was just 4.1°C, our fourth lowest September minimum. Overall, the mean for the month was 14.8°C, just slightly above the long term average of 14.6°C. So we have now – just – had our 14th month in a row with a mean temperature above the long term average.

There were no named storms in September, but the unsettled end to the month was unsurprisingly accompanied by more persistent low pressure, with a reading of 980.7 hPa our lowest on record for September (albeit with only 16 years of comparable records). With the early part of the month more settled with high pressure, the overall mean for the month was exactly average, at 1031.4 hPa. The highest winds were also associated with these depressions, our maximum gust being from the WNW of 31mph (Force 6) on the 30th. These also contributed to the cooler end to the month, with the predominant winds from a northerly quarter, whereas a spell of winds from the south-easterly quarter during the settled weather is also reflected in the prevalence wind rose.

As the daylight hours reduce, so we get less sun. The total for the month was 98.5 hours, an average of 3.3 hours per day. There were seven days with no sunshine at all. The sunniest day was the 16th with 8.6 hours.

And we’ve got October to come now – that’s on average our wettest month! Will it also be another warmer than average month? See next month’s Weather News report!