Weather report - James Lang Brown
From North Brewham weather station in Somerset, 6 miles from Carymoor Environmental Centre

Review of 2004
The first four months gave very average weather, though there was a blizzard on the evening of 28th January, with gale force gusts and thunder. May and June were on the dry side, with an amazing spell of perfect summer from 6th May to 17th June, and temperatures soaring to nearly 30°. It was then all down hill. There were phenomenally heavy falls, the worst being 19mm in half an hour on July 22nd. August too was appalling. Though we came out of it fairly lightly, in other parts of the south-west whole villages were swept away. There was a brief period of stunning weather from the last few days of August through the first week of September, and from then on there was rain nearly every day, though very little of it - September was actually one of our drier months. October, on the other hand was really wet: 152mm, or nearly twice the average. Before the end of the month however a strong high pushed in, and we enjoyed a fantastic autumn - there was only one really wet day in November. The total rainfall for the year was 912mm, which is marginally (5%) below average. Though I don't analyse temperature figures over the long term, the national press tells us that though there was no real heat wave, 2004 is the warmest year on record.

The Weather for December 2004
The November drought continued almost unbroken until the middle of December. This was more than three weeks with only 6mm of rain. This would have been a very dry spell in our driest month (March), but in the middle of winter is unprecedented. The grey dull anticyclone gave way to SW winds, and the rest of the month was very wet. We had 13.6mm on the 16th, and 29.5 on the 18th, and rain virtually every day to the end of the month. It got steadily colder, with night temperatures to freezing or below on 7 nights (-3.4°C on the night 26/27th). We had hopes of a white Christmas, but there was a great deal of rain with the snow and sleet of 24th and 25th. On Boxing Day the weather improved, with a light Northerly, warm sun and a ground frost at night. The total rain for the month was 82.2mm - 84% of the average.

October 2004
The depressing weather of September continued almost unbroken through October. The weather was dominated by a series of deep depressions mostly passing to the south of us, bringing heavy rain and strong to gale force gusts, largely from the east. There were only six dry days, and several phenomenally wet ones. 30mm fell on 3rd, 23.3 on 13th, 18on 27th, and 15 on 28th. At last, on the 30th a strong Atlantic high pushed in, bringing calm misty days. The total rainfall was 152mm - 90% more than average. It was warm for the time of year- nearly 1.5° above last October.

Rainfall chart 2004 vs 10 year average

Max Min temperature 2004

Weather report spreadsheet by day 2004 [112kb]

@ Carymoor Environmental Trust and James Lang Brown Updated January 2005