Max (Celsius)

Min (Celsius)

Rainfall (mm)

AIRHEAD

31.0

24.7

13.4

TRAVELLERS

30.0

23.8

25.5

GEORGETOWN

32.1

24.2

14.4

ST. HELENA

22.9

17.1

4.8

FALKLANDS

12.7

1.4

3.0

UK (Brize Norton)

20.8

4.0

16.6

UK

High pressure started the week warm and settled with highest temperatures seen on Wednesday but Thursday brought a change to cooler temperatures and cloudy wet weather and there were heavy prolonged showers overnight on Friday.

Falklands

An unsettled week with a series of weak fronts passing throughout the week making it mainly cloudy with rain at times, heaviest on Friday.  Very windy on Sunday.

Ascension

A mixed week with cool cloudy days on Monday and Saturday, Wednesday was very wet with 12.8 mm of rain in 1 day and the rest of the week was very sunny including a hot Sunday.

St. Helena

Mainly dry but cloudy with a few showers on Thursday and Sunday and heavier showers on Wednesday morning.

Oil spilling from an oil rig off the coast of the Gulf of Mexico in the USA could be an “unprecedented environmental disaster” according to US President Barack Obama.  The Deepwater Horizon rig sank on April 22^nd and huge amounts of oil has been spilling into the sea ever since.  Like the Volcanic ash in Europe, weather patterns are a major player in why this is turning into such a disaster.  Strong winds are pushing the crude oil over hastily constructed booms towards the delicate wetlands across Louisiana, a state still struggling to recover after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  The oil could then be caught in the Gulf Loop Current, a clockwise current caused by winds pushing warm water between Mexico and Cuba.  This current moves north towards Mississippi and Alabama then curves down the west coast of Florida.  Added to this, poor visibility, high waves and strong winds halted efforts to control the spill via controlled burns and skimming yesterday and are preventing relief wells from being drilled.  Yesterday the slick was around nine miles (14km) off the coast of south-eastern Louisiana.  BP, who leased the doomed rig, says it will be at least a week before temporary measures to stem the leak are in place and if unchecked, this spill could eclipse the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster as the worst oil spill in US history.