SEPTEMBER was warm, especially mid-month and by day, but fractionally cooler than normal at night. This was due to the comparatively cloud-free skies that gave many pleasant, sunny days. Over England and Wales as a whole, it was the sunniest September on record.

Not only have temperatures been consistently above the norm this year but so has sunshine. Most places reached their usual annual total around the end of August. Several are already about to surpass that of their previous sunniest year in the last 20 or more.

Rainfall generally approached the norm in September but was on the wet side in some spots that caught the worst of the downpours around the third weekend.

The northerlies that gave the cool final week of August were soon displaced as an area of high pressure transferred across Britain during the first two days of September. Weather patterns then reverted to those we've been familiar with in recent months. Although fairly changeable, with high pressure somewhere nearby over the Continent, it stayed largely fine. Winds from a south-westerly direction gained the upper hand once more. At 10am, my regular observation hour here at Carlton, near Stokesley, 80pc of them came from this quarter.

There were a few exceptions to this theme. Sunday the 7th was one, when showers became thundery during the afternoon. Another began on Friday the 19th as a weak cold front moved south. The cooler air to its north was reinforced by a surge of Arctic air at the same time as a thrust of very warm air came from the south. Neither airstream was willing to give ground so the resulting clash over Northern England persisted for three days. With each fluctuation in the battle, heavy rain broke out on the front.

This was particularly prolonged and torrential that Friday evening and into the night, producing up to 38mm (1ins) in a narrow strip from Pateley Bridge to Northallerton to Teesmouth. It accounted for exactly half the month's accumulation at Carlton, giving the wettest day in any September in my two decades of figures, and in the three days, the average rainfall for the month.

A final thrust from the north early Monday saw the last soaking of the series and the cold air pushing right across Britain. Brighter skies returned, but it was distinctly chilly for a couple of days, with widespread ground frost at night, until milder south-westerlies once more filtered into the country.

It is now the latter half of the hurricane season in the south-west Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean. This lasts from about July until November. The past month saw two vigorous examples hit the headlines. "Fabian" battered Bermuda during the first weekend and two weeks later "Isabelle" slammed into the eastern seaboard of the US.

Hurricanes always rapidly weaken after they make landfall, as did Isabelle, as it turned towards the Great Lakes. Sometimes they train their sights on us but are soon reduced to tropical storms, then relatively harmless depressions, as they cross the increasingly cool waters of the Atlantic, just as Fabian did as it headed for Greenland. Nevertheless, about once a year, their remnants can still give us a good-blow and the odd spell of very heavy rain.

We never get true hurricanes in this country, not a fully-fledged one with the characteristic eye at its centre. The notorious October 1987 storm wasn't one, or an ex-hurricane. It was a depression that developed very rapidly in the Bay of Biscay and became extremely deep and gave rise to "hurricane-force" winds, i.e. of over 63 knots (72mph) in South-East England.

Even with global warming, we won't experience one in the British Isles. They need sea temperatures in excess of 27C (81F) to breed and sustain themselves. It will be several centuries, even at the current rapid increase in temperature, before our surrounding seas become that hot. However, the chances of us being clouted by more vicious depressions will certainly grow.

SEPTEMBER TEMPERATURES

& RAINFALL at

CARLTON in CLEVELAND

Mean max 18.9C, 66F (+2.1C, +4F)

Mean min 9.2C, 48.5F (-0.1C, -0F)

Highest max 25.1C, 77F, 14th

Lowest min 3.1C, 37.5F, 24th, 27th

Total rainfall 71.2mm, 2.8ins (+9mm, +0.35ins)

Wettest day 35.6mm, 1.4ins, 19th

No of rain days, with 0.2mm (0.01ins) or more 12 (-1.5)

(Figures in brackets show the difference from the 20-year mean, 1983-2002