'It never rains on Battle day' - or does it?

Here we are on the new date for Jersey's Battle of Flowers - Friday 11 August 2023.

The weather is a little different to the record-breaking heat that we experienced last year.

As the saying goes, 'it never rains on Battle day', but is there any truth in that? Although the event taking place in the summer usually makes for decent sunshine, that isn't always the case, like today.

The common saying is thought to have originated in Jersey's tourism heyday during the 1970s - but even the Battle of Flowers' organisers are not sure of its provenance.

We've already had a very different summer to that of 2022 and with a waving cold front over the Channel Islands - the key advice for today is to keep an umbrella handy.

Last August we had blue sky, wall-to-wall sunshine and a maximum temperature of 31.9°C which was a record for Battle of Flowers Day.

The minimum temperature in Jersey on 11 August last year was 19.4°C: an indication of how the day was going to pan out. But last year was not the sunniest, even with 13.6 hours of sunshine! The sunniest was on 29 July 1971 with 15 hours recorded.

1953 saw the wettest Battle of Flowers on record when there was 18.7mm of rainfall.

Today it is hoped there will be some brighter spells during Battle proceedings by early evening and Saturday looks to be a more settled day with sunny spells, patchy cloud at times and the risk of one or two showers during the moonlight parade.

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