10/03/2016 Weather for the Week Ahead

If you were watching yesterday, you'll know I gave you a heads up

for a significant change in the weather which we're anticipating

over the week ahead to something a lot drier

and, boy, do we need it, because Wednesday was a washout for some.

Flooding rain, for example, across parts of the Midlands.

This picture taken from a weather watcher in Rutland.

There was some sunshine, though, not a lot,

but thankfully, I think, through the week ahead, there'll be

a lot more of this, than the other,

in prospect as we'll see.

Still a little bit of rain

across the heart of England on Thursday,

but even that will tend to fade away,

though this zone through parts

of the Midlands and southern counties

and up towards Northumberland

will stay rather cloudy.

Now on either side of that

we'll see a better chance of sunshine.

A lovely day for most of Scotland,

parts of Northern Ireland doing OK

and the more western parts of England

and West Wales enjoying some sunshine,

certainly a much better day

across parts of the West Country

than we saw on Wednesday.

Now, further east we'll have that zone

of thicker cloud, the odd spot

of drizzle perhaps still left behind

and underneath that cloud

it won't be all that warm,

just 6 degrees, but some sunshine

further east for East Anglia

and later the south-east.

On to Friday, then, a nice day again

for some of us, particularly across

parts of England and Wales,

though still some stubborn areas of cloud

floating around through

the heart of England.

Thickest cloud, though,

through Northern Ireland and Scotland,

a weather front bringing some rain

to the more north-western areas here.

Now that will push away northwards

for a time as we hit

the weekend and with high pressure

nestling in across most other places,

plenty of dry weather to come.

So I'm pretty optimistic if you've got plans for this weekend,

then we're in good shape.

A lot of dry weather, some sunshine, still quite chilly by night.

Where the sky is clear, we could see touches of frost.

So here's the picture on Saturday, then,

a lot of the dry weather, particularly

across England and Wales.

Northern Ireland and Scotland,

there's a chance of some rain,

particularly across the far north-west of Scotland

where it will be quite breezy.

Most other places seeing fairly light winds.

On into Sunday, a similar picture really,

a lot of dry weather.

I think the best of any sunshine probably

across the more southern and eastern areas.

Further north, more cloud,

more breeze, but actually

the higher temperatures will be across

the more northern areas.

A cool feed coming off

the near continent

and that'll be there on Monday as well.

Otherwise, weather-wise, plenty of dry weather.

11 or 12 in the north,

7 or 8 in the south.

Now I mentioned that feed off the continent.

It's coming in around that area of high pressure.

These easterly winds,

they'll be most evident across the southern half of the UK.

Now if you imagine we were in the middle of winter,

then this sort of set-up actually would give us

some very cold weather, bitter winds coming in off a frozen continent,

but now we're into the early spring,

the summer's got a bit more oomph to it

and it's starting to warm up the continent,

so those easterly winds are not quite so bitter,

but they'll still feel quite chilly, I think, across more southern areas,

whereas further north, the winds will be lighter

and it won't feel quite so cool.

So that's the set-up through the early part of next week.

The high pressure there at ground level,

but if you were watching yesterday,

you will know that I pointed out the fact that that high pressure

actually extends all away up through the atmosphere

and when you've got high pressure right away up through

the atmosphere like this, it tends to be more stubborn.

It sticks around for longer, which is

why I'm fairly confident, actually, that this area of high pressure

will stick around throughout next week,

dominating the weather,

giving as plenty of dry conditions,

hopefully some sunshine,

but still that coolish breeze

across the south.

That's it.

I'll update you again tomorrow.