Ascension : Met Office - Weather Report
Submitted by The Islander (Met Office) 15.07.2010 (Article Archived on 29.07.2010)

UK: A dry and fine week with very warm/hot temperatures. A frontal system went through on Wednesday but brought little rain to Brize Norton. High pressure re-established itself and lead to a fine and hot end to the week.

Statistics for the week ending Monday 12-Jul-10

	Max (Celsius)	Min (Celsius)	Rainfall (mm)
AIRHEAD	29.5	23.5	1.6
TRAVELLERS	29.4	21.1	8.0
RESIDENCY	25.8	18.4	8.0
GEORGETOWN	30.9	22.4	3.2
ST. HELENA	20.0	14.5	11.6
FALKLANDS	5.7	-4.3	29.4
UK (Brize Norton)	27.8	10.0	Trace

UK: A dry and fine week with very warm/hot temperatures. A frontal system went through on Wednesday but brought little rain to Brize Norton. High pressure re-established itself and lead to a fine and hot end to the week.

Falklands: A cold and settled start to the week. There was a period of snow on Wednesday with a max temp. of only 2 C. The latter part of the week varied between periods of cloud and drizzle and showers, some of which were wintry in nature. Wind increased too after Friday. The weekend settled down once more, however fog, low cloud and drizzle returned for Monday morning. 

Ascension: The start of the week saw a few showers, although temperatures were still above average. It was dry from Wednesday until Saturday. Sunday saw a few drizzly showers that brought visibility down for a time.

St. Helena: It was a mainly cloudy week with some showers.  Thursday saw 3.6 mm of rain fall before the cloud broke up to leave a sunny afternoon. It was a windy start to the week, however it then settled down after Thursday.

Here at Ascension Island we enjoy mainly good weather all year round. But quite often there is a lot of cloud and sometimes showers. So where does all this cloud come from and how does it form? As you can probably guess, the answer lies in the fact that Ascension is surrounded for mile after mile of sea. It is the sea temperature that is the main trigger for cloud to form, which then moves towards Ascension on the prevailing south-easterly wind. We all know that hot air rises, but when the air near the sea surface warms (due to the sea temperature, which at the moment is around 27 C) it becomes warmer than the  air above it and so rises until it condenses and forms a cloud. Sometimes the air continues to rise to cause a deep cloud and it’s this that can cause showers. The larger the depth of cloud, the heavier the rain. On very rare occasions the cloud rises so much that thunderstorms can develop and very heavy rain can occur. Thankfully there has not been a thunderstorm at Ascension since 1985!