Weather Watch: Summer drier and cooler than normal

June was drier and cooler than average across much of the UK.

Despite a brief heatwave at the beginning of July, with a record breaking temperature of 35.7C recorded at Heathrow on the first of the month, the bulk of July was cooler than normal too.

August was a mixed bag with occasional cool periods interspersed by some warmer days with temperatures reaching up to 25C in our region.

Overall, the summer 2015 was cooler than average with a Central European Time (CET) temperature of 15.6C.

The hottest summer, according to the CET records dating back to 1659, was that of 1976 (June-August) hitting a mean temperature of 17.77C.

The coldest summer on the CET record was in 1725 with a mean temperature of 13.1C.

The eruption of volcano Tambora in Indonesia in 1815, which killed 70,000 people, resulted in the spring and summer of 1816 being extremely cold as well, and therefore it was named as the year without a summer.

The areas most affected were those in Europe and North America where crops failed and there were food shortages.

Back to our Aylesbury Vale now and as we are in the beginning of the meteorological autumn, it seems that the rest of this week will be on the cool side and although a lot of dry weather is expected, especially by night, there is still the risk of occasional showers developing in the daytime.