August 2013 Summary

In Brief:
A very warm month, especially so at night.  Much wetter than July but not exceptionally wet.

Temperature: [Minimum]:
The coolest night of the month was the 19th/20th, when the temperature fell to 13.6 degs C.  This was the highest reading below which the temperature did not fall, for any month ever at this location.*
This exceeds 13.5 degs C, only set in July, and the 'highest' minimum temperature for August previously was 11.5 degs C in 2004.
The warmest night of the month was the 14th/15th, with a 'low' of 20.4 degs C.  This was one of three nights this month that exceeded the previous 'highest minimum' ever at this location* of 19.8 degs C, itself set as recently as the 30th/31st July.   This means that the previous highest minimum ever figure* of 19.2 degs C set in July 2006, was exceeded seven times in July and August 2013!
The average night-time temperature for August 2013 was 16.92 degs C.  This was slightly down on July [17.09 degs C] but still becomes the highest August figure ever*, pushing 2012's 16.07 degs C into second place.

Temperature: [Maximum]:
Daytime temperatures ranged from 18.3 degs C on the 31st, to 25.1 degs C on the 2nd.  This was the only day of the month which exceeded 25 degs C, but it was still the warmest August day since 2006, though not a fine summer's day - see 'thunder' below!

The 31st was one of only three days in the month where the temperature did not exceed 20 degs C.  The others were the 24th and 25th, which coincidentally were the Saturday and Sunday of the Bank Holiday weekend.
The average maximum temperature for the month was 22.42 degs C, [July = 23.45 degs C], but this still makes it the warmest August since 2004, [22.52 degs C], therefore exceeding the August average for the 'good' summer of 2006 [22.1].

Rainfall:
95.5 mm of rain fell during August 2013, making it the wettest month since May 2013.  It was a lot wetter than July [36.2 mm], but a lot drier than August 2012 [149.1 mm]!  It also turned out to be the third driest August of the last six.
The wettest day itself was the 5th [!], with a total of 39.6 mm falling, mainly during the morning. This was the wettest day since March 21st, and the wettest August day since 2010 when the 25th saw 45.9 mm.
Around two-thirds of the month's total rain [61.6 mm] had fallen by the 5th, with most of the remainder [28.3 mm] falling from the 14th to the 18th.  This left the rest of the month mainly dry, although there were only 10 completely dry days, and 16 days with no measurable rain.  Only 1.7 mm of rain fell after the 18th.

Cumulatively, 669.6 mm of rain has now fallen during 2013, compared to 744.8 by the end of August 2012.

Thunder:
There was an afternoon thunderstorm followed by showers with thunder during the evening of the 2nd - which was also the month's warmest day.

*Since at least 2004.