November reversed the trend of six consecutive drier than average months with a total rainfall of 96.5mm, which was 5.2mm above the 34-year average. The extreme rainfall months of November occurred in 1990 with just 27.8mm and 203.5mm in 2002.
The wettest day occurred towards the end of the month with 16.0mm on November 27 although there were three other days when the daily rainfall ran into double figures. There were eleven totally dry days, a figure close to the average for this month.
The rainfall for the eleven months of January to November was 670mm being 83mm below the average. The extremes were 564mm in 1996 and 1043mm in 2014.
The late autumn month was slightly warmer than average, +0.7C, in contrast to September and October, which were a little below average.
We enjoyed two spells when the thermometer rose well above average due to mild, Atlantic air such as November 5 to November 25, with several days at least 4C above average and the warmest day with 14.4C on November 6. However, strong northeasterly winds brought an abrupt change from November 19 to November 26 when the opposite was true with the coldest day on November 22 producing a maximum of only 4.5C being almost 6C below average.
An air frost was recorded on six days with the early morning of November 2 being the coldest when the thermometer dropped to -2.0C. However, that was quite mild compared to the November 30minimum in 2016 when the frost was severe, down to -7.3C.
Due to the passage of several Atlantic depressions, fortunately mainly to the west of southern England, we have survived a number of very windy days. The period November 6 to November 10 gave days with maximum gusts of 25mph and above with a peak gust of 38mph on November 9. Storm Diana brushed close to the country at the end of the month so there were stormy days from November 27 to the November 29 with the windiest day of the month occurring on November 29 with a peak gust of 47mph.
The average November sunshine total over the past four years, when that instrument was installed, stands at 39 hours but November 2018 gave us 70 hours of welcome strong sunshine.
Summary for Autumn 2018:
Autumn, meteorologically, consists of the three complete months of September to November, purely for the ease of statistical calculations. The past autumn mean temperature was marginally above average (+0.2C).
Rainfall totalling 189mm was 49mm below the 34-year average. During the three months the equivalent rainfall of 101mm was lost through evaporation from ground sources and plant life, which was 14mm above the seven-year average, due to the drier than average September and October months.
A total of 358 hours of sunshine was recorded. That was well above the average for the past four years, which currently stands at 236 hours.