THE awful August everyone has been complaining about really was as bad as people thought, according to Rothamsted. Weather statistics compiled by the Harpenden research station show that August was a very cloudy and wet month – with rain on all but six da

THE awful August everyone has been complaining about really was as bad as people thought, according to Rothamsted.

Weather statistics compiled by the Harpenden research station show that August was a very cloudy and wet month - with rain on all but six days.

It was mild throughout, neither hot nor cold, with maximum and minimum temperatures logged as below and above average respectively.

Rainfall was twice the average for the month with 107.8mm compared with 53.7mm and the eleventh wettest August since records began in 1890.

On 25 days there was more than 0.2mm or more of rain, six of which had more than 5mm. The final day of the month, Sunday, August 31, had 34mm of rain - nearly one-and-a-half inches.

Sunshine at 121.2 hours was 75.6 hours below average making it the fifth cloudiest since records began at Rothamsted and the cloudiest since 1968. There were three days when the sun didn't shine at all and the sunniest days were August 4 and 15 with 8.6 hours each.

Total hours of sunshine were well below those recorded in February this year and the rainfall levels were on par with January and March.

The highest temperature was on Saturday, August 30, at 24.4 degrees which was 2.3 degrees below average and the lowest night temperature was 8.4 degrees on Friday, August 15, which was 2.2 degrees above average.