September 2013 Summary

In Brief:
Pressure was often high, but instead of leading to much settled, fine and dry weather, there were rather disappointing cloud amounts, especially towards the end of the month.
A newsworthy hail storm occurred on the 6th, but apart from that, rain amounts were mainly small. There were no lengthy dry spells after the first few days.
It was a warmer than average month though, particularly, as in August, at night. 

Temperature: [Minimum]:
Night-time temperatures ranged from 10.9 degs C on the night of the 14th/15th, to 19.6 degs C on the night of the 21st/22nd.  This gave an average minimum temperature of 14.94* degs C.  [*see note below].
All these figures were the highest in their categories for September at this location, since at least 2004, overtaking September 2006, which previously held these records with 10.6; 18.8 and 14.71 degs C respectively.

Temperature: [Maximum]:
Maximum temperatures ranged from 16.4 degs C on the 16th, to 23.7 degs C on the 21st.  The 21st was thus the warmest September day at this location since 2007.
The average maximum temperature for the month was 20.02 degs C, making it the second warmest September of the last ten, behind 2006 with 21.38 degs C.
There were a maximum of 16 days this month when the temperature exceeded 20 degs C.  In 2006 there were 22.  The last time the temperature exceeded 25 degs C in September was in 2006.

* There were no individual reports for five days this month, although extremes for this period are still noted.  Normally these short and rare breaks are insignificant in calculating averages, however this break occurred during a spell when night-time minima were high, meaning that all figures 'lost' were above the average without them.   Therefore I have calculated an estimate, which is 15.35 degs C [replacing 14.94].
Using the estimate this September's night-time average temperature is even more significantly the highest of the last ten.

Rainfall:
63.8 mm of rain fell during September 2013, making it the second driest September of the last six, behind 2009, and the third driest month of 2013 behind April and July.  95.5 mm of rain fell during August 2013.

September 2013's 63.8mm is very close to the amount that fell in September 2012, 65.5 mm, but when comparing to last year it should be noted that September 2012 was the only month between June 2012 and January 2013 which had less than 100 mm of rain.

The wettest day of September 2013 was the 6th, when 19.0 mm fell during a spectacular hail-storm which made the news due to it's intensity.
The only other day of the month with more than 7 mm of rain was the 13th with 12.3 mm.  Unfortunately the remainder of the month's rain fell in small amounts, limiting the number of dry spells considerably.  There were only about 11 completely dry days during the month, and the longest run of these was the 1st to the 5th.

Cumulatively, 733.4 mm of rain has now fallen during 2013, compared to 810.3 by the end of September 2012.

There was no thunder during the month.