A rare white rainbow has been photographed close to the M5 motorway near Bristol.

The meteorological phenomenon was spotted by Kieran Argo while out walking in fields near Pill, early on Saturday morning.

Also known as a fogbow, cloud bow or ghost of a rainbow, the arc is formed when sunlight interacts with small water droplets in fog, mist or cloud.

A classical rainbow is created when sunlight interacts with raindrops.

Mr Argo said: “It just appeared. It was a very distinct white arc and looked just like a white rainbow and was similar in size.

“It’s the first time I’ve ever seen one.”

Climate change driven by industrial society is having an increasing impact on the UK’s weather, the Met Office says.

Its annual UK report confirms that 2019 was the 12th warmest year in a series from 1884.

Although it does not make the top 10, the report says 2019 was remarkable for high temperature records in the UK.

There was also a severe swing in weather from the soaking winter to the sunny spring.

The temperature extremes were:

• A new UK maximum record (38.7° C) on 25 July, in Cambridge
• A new winter maximum record (21.2° C) on 26 February, in Kew Gardens, London – the first time 20C has been reached in the UK in winter
• A new December maximum record (18.7° C) on 28 December, in Achfary, Sutherland
• A new February minimum record (13.9° C) on 23 February, in Achnagart, Highland

No national low temperature records were set in the State of the UK Climate report, published by the Royal Meteorological Society.

More than 11,000 new homes are planned to be built on land at the highest risk of flooding in the regions battered by the worst winter storms in a generation, the Guardian has learned.

An analysis of planning documents reveals that 11,410 new homes have been planned for land the government considers high-risk in the seven English counties where thousands of properties have been devastated by flooding since November.

Charities have said British farmers are increasingly at risk of suicide owing in part to uncertainty over Brexit and the impact of bad weather.

Distressed farmers have made dozens of calls to crisis networks and some have been placed on “suicide watch”, according to the National Farmers’ Union (NFU).

The NFU – the UK’s largest farming organisation, representing thousands of agricultural workers – said farmers were still struggling with the impact of the “beast from the east” snowstorms last year and the summer drought.

Alistair Mackintosh, the NFU’s Cumbrian council delegate, said: “I’ve had many worrying telephone calls just in the last two or three weeks from farmers who want to give up, and who are on suicide watch. But what I fear most is those who do not telephone you.”

Mackintosh, a sheep farmer, said he was finding it hard dealing with the cries for help. “When you’re aware of the suicide rate for UK farmers and their exceptional difficulties, there is every reason to fear we will see more such acts,” he said.

According to figures released last year by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), between 2011 and 2015 approximately one agricultural worker a week killed themselves.

Adam Day, the managing director of Penrith-based The Farmer Network, said Brexit had created a “ticking timebomb” in the farming community.

He said: “These are unprecedented times. The farming community is facing a perfect storm, and greater emotional support is going to be needed. Without a Brexit deal, sheep producers have no idea whether they will be able to export this season’s lambs beyond 29 March.

“Whichever way Brexit goes, farmers are facing a £25-30 a head loss on this year’s lambs. It is going to be absolutely dire. We already have phone calls from farmers saying ‘things are not very good and we don’t know which way to turn’.

Georgina Lamb, of the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institute (RABI), said the charity was dealing with increasing numbers of cases. She said livestock farmers, in particular, were struggling to cope with winter feed bills and the additional cost of housing livestock.

The charity, which helps farming families in need, reports a 47% increase in the amount of money it paid out last year. It issued grants worth £2.22m to 1,248 farmers, farm workers and their dependants during 2018.

Dr Frank King estimated sundial experts were now down to their last 100 around the globe. 

He said few young people were rigorously tackling the maths required to design the timepieces – with British schools “scraping the surface” when it came to algebra, trigonometry and geometry.   

The sundial enthusiast, 76, a former computer science lecturer at Cambridge, is one of the leading experts in the field and designed iconic British timepieces including the 22-metre Noon Mark on the London Stock Exchange, which measures 22-metres long, and the Golden Jubilee sundial outside the House of Lords.  

Baffling meteorological forecasts could be consigned to history under a scheme to help more people understand the weather.

The Met Office is planning to incorporate regional slang into local broadcasts to make bulletins simpler and more useful.

Unsurprisingly for a country obsessed with the weather, Britain has an impressive lexicon of meteorological idioms, from “raining cats and dogs”, to conditions “cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey” a phrase originating from military history rather than chilly primates.

The Met Office is launching an appeal for people to submit their local weather words and terms, so they can come up with a new glossary for use in regional forecasts. They are also considering reading the weather in local dialects.

Slice into a new season English onion and you might notice the skin is thicker than usual. Likewise take a drive into the countryside and you will see that sheep already have full coats.

These are the signs that winter will be colder and harder than usual, according to natural forecaster David King, who has been monitoring seasonal changes in nature for more than 50 years

According to Mr King the robin has already marked out its territory for the winter, and the white dead nettle flowers are blooming in massive quantities, both bellwethers for a long and chilly season

Trees and hedges are also showing a glut of acorns, hips, haws, berries, fruits, and nuts which Mr King describes as a ‘natural fridge’ being stocked for a hard winter with food above ground level, which hints at frost and snow.

Authorites warned people to expect up to seven days of “unsettled” conditions amid fears of further flooding could hit already water-logged areas.

Much of the country has experienced pockets of mild, dry weather in the run-up to Christmas, but that is all expected to change later today.

As a series of bands sweep in from the Atlantic, pockets of England were warned to prepare for yet further flooding after the Environment Agency issued another round of warnings.

Five areas were placed under flood warnings, the second most serious of three types of weather warnings, meaning some flooding is expected.

There are three such warnings in place in the South West – including the Somerset Levels – and two for the Anglian region.

I was at a community consultation event in Heckington (10 points for anyone who can tell me how many sails on its windmill!), testing whether the settlement profiling work done by a group of consultants matched local people’s experiences.

We got onto the discussions about the “Natural” domain (essentially a measure of local bio-diversity) and my heart sank when one of the participants said: “Now don’t get me onto global warming.” I thought of that reading this article and of the students I passed on the way home last night having a picnic in their front garden on a patch of grass next to County Hall.

In typical style, the Daily Mail goes on from its headline to exclaim: “The glorious spring conditions appear to finally spell the end of Britain’s sub-zero winter, where temperatures of -10C gripped the country. Roads were jammed and plagued with potholes before Christmas and the sporting calendar was decimated by the cold weather when Britain shivered through the festive season.

But sunseekers put the chilly winter well and truly behind them today by taking to the great outdoors thanks to bright spells across Eastern and Southern England.”

Will we ever stop talking about the weather? More importantly what is the overall impact on council budgets and planning of our ever increasingly unpredictable weather? Don’t get me onto global warming…