THE WEATHER.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 252, 1 August 1940, Page 4

THE WEATHER.

DULL WITH SOME MISTY RAIN. After the beautiful mild weather yesterday and Tuesday the sky was very overcast this morning and thore was some light- misty rain. One point had been recorded at the Ashburton Domain up till nine o’clock this morning. The barometer rose rapidly yesterday and this morning stood at 30.31 inches. The maximum and minimum temperatures yesterday were 61.3 and 43.7 degrees, little variation from the readings for the previous day. REMARKABLY MILD WEATHER. July, 1940, will go down in the records of the Ashburton County a,s being an extremely mild winter month. Snow, rain and cold snaps which are customary in mid-winter were absent. There was scarcely a. single wet day and temperatures, particularly toward the end of the period, wefre unusually high. There was no heavy rain, light drizzles amounting to 63 points, a great contrast to the 3.62 inches recorded in the previous July.

The rainfall to datci this year is 16.25 inches, which is still considerably greater than the 11.80 inches at the same time last year. Details of the rainfall this year, with those of last year for comparison aye:—

Day-temperatures last month generally were- high. Maximum readings varied between 41.1 and 63.4 degrees and the minima between 23.3 and 42.2 degrees.. Further indication of the; mildness of the month is the fact that whereas the lowest maximum temperature was 41.1, in July of last year, the maximum was below 40 degrees on altogether 26 occasions. A frost of 15.4 degrees was experienced on July 10 and -was the most severe since July, 1938, when two frosts of 16.0 degrees were recorded. In all there were 19 frosts, which is the same number as last ye ay. The barometer reached its greatest height on July 24 when it read 80.13 incites. The lowest reading was 29.43 inches on July 12. The sun shone for 103.9 hours dur-, ing the month. This figure cannot be compared until previous months as obstructions near the instrument have 1 only recently been removed. TO-DAY’S FORECAST. WELLINGTON, This Day. The Government Meteorojpgist, at noon to-day, issued the following statement regarding the weather: — A weak trough ic-f low pressure lias across the middle of the country but otherwise anti-cyclonic conditions prevail. The forecast for the east coast of the South Island from Blenheim to Oamaru is as follows: Light to moderate southerly winds later becoming variable; weather dull and unsettled with scattered drizzle at first hut slowly improving from the south; temperatures cool; seas slight to moderate.

1940 1939 January ... 3.23 0.49 February ... 1.68 0.9’4 March . ... 0.76 1.81 April . ... 3.37 0.98 May ... ... 5.97 1.40 June ... ... 0.61 2.47 July ... ... 0.63 3.62 Total ... 16.25 11.80