Last month was the dullest August for a decade, the latest statistics from the Met Office show.

The weather was in sharp contrast to the hot and dry spell the island saw at the start of the summer.

A Met Office spokesman said: ’After the dry and hot start to summer, August was closer to what we would expect for the time of year.

’May, June and July combined saw a record breaking 31 days reaching 20C or more but August saw only two days.’

The average temperature last month was 17.9C, 0.2C below the long term average.

The hottest day was August 3, when the temperature climbed to 21C at Ronaldsway and the coldest night was August 11, when the air temperature fell to 7.9C.

The month saw 58mm of rain at Ronaldsway, only slightly below the August mean. The wettest day was August 15 with 9.8mm.

A hosepipe ban has been in place since August 3. Manx Utilities has said the ban will remain in place to allow reservoir levels to ’recover sufficiently’.

There were just 153.5 hours of bright sunshine during the month, 18% below normal.

The mean wind speed at the airport measured 11.3mph, average for August.

The highest gust of 38 mph was measured on August 19.

Fog was observed on seven days at Ronaldsway, double the August average, with fog on the mountain often causing problems for the Manx Grand Prix organisers.

Once again there were no thunderstorms but small hail fell on August 24 and funnel clouds were observed on August 30.