17/04/2016 Weather for the Week Ahead

Hi there. Somebody once said April is the cruellest month.

By the end of this broadcast perhaps you'll begin to understand why.

We started the weekend with a real taste of late winter,

a covering of snow in the Cotswolds and a few other places as well.

But over the next few days, things will start to warm up a bit

and spring will return,

and this could well be the scene by the middle of the week.

It'll feel quite pleasant, I think,

with a lot of dry weather around, and in the sunshine it'll feel OK.

Trouble is, come next weekend we're back to square one again, and who

knows, somebody somewhere could see

another covering of snow by then. A lot going on, then.

We start proceedings with a frost on the ground in many

places on Sunday morning.

A lot of sunshine, though, and by the time many of us are up,

the frost will be lifting and it'll be a nice morning out there.

The odd shower perhaps near the east coast for a time. They'll fade away.

An approaching weather front will bring some patchy rain to the

north-west of Scotland, but at the other end of the UK,

it should be dry into the afternoon.

Just the chance of the odd shower across some southern

counties of England, but they'll be reasonably isolated

and many places will avoid these.

And the winds will be lighter than on Saturday,

so although temperatures won't be all that high,

it'll feel a bit more comfortable.

Clouding up, though, across Northern Ireland

and Scotland as that weak front approaches,

but any rain is confined to the western Highlands,

and even here it won't amount to much,

Now, that weather front will try to push some rain southwards,

for much of the coming week.

though the nights still will be quite chilly.

and that weather front really has died a death,

There'll be some sunshine, too, with reasonably light winds,

temperatures again edging up a little bit,

though the nights still quite chilly, as I mentioned.

By Wednesday, a freshening breeze across southern areas,

lighter winds further north, most places still dry,

and again it'll feel quite comfortable out there,

if you can get out of the breeze, that is.

By the middle of the week,

there's a weather system coming up from the south.

There's a question mark about how far north it gets.

The threat of some rain for a time across some south-western areas.

We'll keep an eye on that.

Certainly it does look as if that breeze will continue to freshen,

Temperatures out of the breeze and in the sunshine will do pretty well,

potentially up into the high teens in one or two

places by Thursday afternoon, so relatively warm at this stage.

However, cold air is ever present to the north,

with a vengeance come the weekend,

So the message is, as we go towards next weekend,

we could well see another plunge of cold arctic air between low

pressure to the east and high pressure to the west.

The dominance of the low and the high is still uncertain,

but with low pressure in quite close attendance there is

the risk of some wintry showers, for sure.

So, to sum up next weekend, it looks like

the cold air's going to return, some wintry showers around,

the risk of some snow on those blustery winds

and the chance of some further overnight frosts.

Gardeners, take note of that. And I'll update you again tomorrow.