1924

Overall 1924 was dull, wet, and cool. There was a record wet day in August The shipping forecast was first transmitted on BBC Radio on 1 January 1924.

January. Warm and unsettled. Mainly rather wet.

February. A cool and dry month; it was dull up to the final week. Only 0.29 inches of rain recorded in Totnes between 25th January and 29th February, and 0.27 inches at Ross on Wye. There were gales on the 29th, when a 73 mph gust was recorded at Fleetwood.

March. Cold first few days, then dry and sunny but cool.

April. Cloudy and cool, but with a warm and sunny Easter. Lucky Farnborough reached 24C on the 21st, whereas on the 5th it had only reached 3C.

May. Changeable, and very thundery in the final two weeks. 123 mm of rain fell in 24 hours at Ludlow on the 31st.

June. Dull everywhere and quite dry apart from the west. The third week however was fine. There was flooding in the Worcester area: the Three Counties Show was severely disrupted, and several animals had to be rescued.

July. There were 13.5 hours of sunshine on a dry St Swithin's Day (15th): it then rained on 30 of the next 40 days. There were some violent thunderstorms: 103 mm of rain fell at Wisley on the 22nd; the same day 28 mm of rain fell in 20 minutes at South Kensington, with large hail and ball lightning, which was also reported in Woking. Parts of the London Undergound were flooded. There was another severe storm in the London on the 29th which "turned the sky black", with frequent lightning and thunder, bringing traffic to a stop.

August. Dull, cool and wet. There was 238.8 mm of rain (and hail) resulting from a thunderstorm at Cannington and Brymore, near Bridgwater (Somerset) on the 18th, with 215 mm of it falling in just 5 hours overnight. This was the record daily rainfall for August until it was narrowly beaten in 2020.

September. A very wet, very windy, but quite warm month. At Southport in the early hours of the 21st a storm with an average windspeed of 65 mph was recorded for two hours, and a gust of 87 mph was recorded at Fleetwood.

October. Warm and unsettled. It was wet in the East Midlands and in the south. 83 mm of rain in 24 hours at Falmouth on the 7th, with widespread gales. There was a warm spell 13th and 14th, and 23C was recorded in Colwyn Bay and Weston-super-mare on the 13th.

November 1924 Warm and dry in the north but dull everywhere. There was a gale on the night of the 26-27 th, with 57 mph recorded at Kew and 68 mph at Shoeburyness.

December. Overall mild and wet with fog and mist. It was a particularly mild month in Scotland, and wetter than average everywhere apart from NE England. On the 11th the country was divided into two: in the area from the east of Dorset to the Wash it was calm, cold, and foggy; to the west and north there was a stiff, mild SW wind. The maximum that day was 1C in London and Yarmouth, but but 10C in Scarborough and Llandudno - a striking front.