Cold snap ends dullest week of weather for 20 months

by David Hughes
A sudden cold snap in the Anglia region has made autumn feel like winter. Photo: ITV Anglia

The Anglia region has a brief, bitter taste of winter in the midst of autumn with a chilly mix of rain, sleet, snow and hail showers. The sunshine is only just reappearing after an absence of six days in some places making it the dullest week in the Eastern Counties since February 2011.

Across the Anglia region the average sunshine for the seven days up to Friday was less than 3 hours in total. Normally a week in October would see 25 hours of sunshine. The last time we had a week with such a lack of sunny weather was in February 2011.

Autumn walkers feel the chill in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk Credit: Colin Jacobs

Daytime temperatures have taken a dive too. Despite the absence of the sun during the week the thermometer rose to 16°C in Norwich and Buxton in Norfolk on Tuesday and at Andrewsfield near Braintree in Essex on Wednesday. In contrast, by Friday the maximum temperature was only 8 or 9°C. The average daytime maximum temperature in October in the Anglia region is 14°C.

Minimum temperatures in the Anglia region in the early hours of Saturday:

  • 0.6C in Higham, Suffolk
  • 0.7C in Andrewsfield, Essex
  • 0.8C in Woburn, Bedfordshire and Wattisham, Suffolk
  • 0.9C in Bedford, in Wittering, Cambs and Pitsford, Northamptonshire
  • 1.3C in Cambridge
  • 1.4C in Writtle, Essex
  • 1.8C in Norwich
  • 1.9C in Shoeburyness, Essex
  • 4.6C in Cromer, Norfolk
Daily temperatures in the Anglia region during October 2012 showing a sharp dip. Credit: ITV Anglia / Met Office

This weekend marks the end of British Summer Time when the clocks are put back an hour to Greenwich Mean Time for the winter. The clocks go back an hour at 2am BST in the early hours of Sunday 28 October 2012.