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August 2004, what a month?

Torrential rain, the after effects of hurricanes and floods have made this year's great British summer "a complete washout". We have experienced one of the worst summers in living memory with crazy weather battering the country this month. Record breaking levels of rainfall have ruined thousands of traditional holidays and pushed the tourist trade to braking point with millions of pounds lost due to rain. Home owners in the south west have had their properties destroyed by devastating floods and unprecedented advent of four hurricanes - Bonny, Alex, Danielle and Charley, sweeping across the Atlantic to blow the nations weather off course.

The shocking weather has also been caused by the jet stream being much further south than usual for this time of year. This has led to wintry weather, with cold air hitting warm air from Europe to create torrential downpours. This month we have had a total of 93.3mm (3.67 inches) rain, which seems remarkably low compared to Shap in Cumbria who had a dampening 12.12in (307.84 mm) of rain in August. The reason for the slightly lower figure is much of the rain filled clouds travelled across the region and missed the plateau of Lyneham. There were days that Swindon had torrential flooding but Lyneham was dry. Remember the glorious August 2003 with record breaking temperatures, glorious sun shines.