10/05/2016 Weather for the Week Ahead

Come the weekend, most of us will be dry but cool.

At the moment, though, the story is one of wet or warm

depending on where you are across the UK.

Let's start off with the warm first of all.

It was a stunning day on Monday across the Highlands of Scotland,

this beautiful picture taken by one of our weather watchers -

27 degrees.

At the other end of the UK, though, it was a very different story.

A very wet afternoon across parts of Devon

and further wet weather to come on Tuesday across

the southern half of the UK, some heavy and thundery bursts

churning their way slowly northwards and westwards.

In contrast, across the northern half of the UK it will be dry

with plenty more of that very warm sunshine

particularly once more across Scotland.

The Western Highlands and Islands probably warmest of all -

mid-20s here - but as we've seen over the last couple of days,

with an easterly breeze those North Sea coasts will be

a good deal cooler - just 12 or 13 degrees.

But a lot of sunshine across Scotland.

Northern Ireland fine and warm, most of northern England too,

but that rain will be edging up

into parts of South Yorkshire, Cheshire, maybe Lancashire.

This is four o'clock. Plenty of wet weather for the Midlands.

It might brighten up across parts of south-east England

but don't be fooled -

further heavy showers are quite possible. Quite humid, thundery air.

Wet weather for Wales and south-west England so if you are on the road

through Tuesday, take it steady - there will be a fair bit of

surface water and spray around.

Check out your BBC local radio station.

Now, as we go through the evening and night,

the rain will continue to churn its way further northwards into

northern England, Northern Ireland too,

where it will kind of grind to a halt.

The exact position of that a little bit uncertain.

Drier on either side and heavy showers across southern areas

again with high humidities.

Best of the sunshine once more across Scotland.

Where you see prolonged sunshine,

again temperatures doing pretty well.

Where it's raining for much of the day,

it will be a good deal cooler.

As I mentioned, that front kind of grinding to a halt and then

it is going to begin to head southwards again later on this week.

The reason for that is northerly winds setting in.

Northerly winds are never all that warm and as you can see by the blue

coming down the North Sea it will turn a good deal cooler.

Bit of a shock to the system for some of us

after all the warm whether and certainly,

temperatures will be down by several degrees

initially across the more northern and eastern parts of the UK,

where there will be a fresh breeze,

fair bit of cloud and maybe the odd shower.

Warmth holding on across the far south-west for a time but the trend

will be, as we hit the weekend, for temperatures to be sliding away.

Still quite breezy near the North Sea coast,

maybe the odd shower, but as you can see, a lot of dry weather.

If you can get out of the breeze and in the sunshine, although

temperatures will be lower than recently, it shouldn't feel too bad.

So, if you are heading out camping, for example,

you will be fine by day

but overnight, with clear skies, expect some chilly ones.

Not far off freezing, I reckon, through this weekend overnight.

Still got that northerly breeze and I'm going to move to one side.

Low pressure trying to come in off the Atlantic but not

really getting very far through this weekend, hence the dry prospect.

But what we are expecting as we go into the early part of next week

is for the jet stream to start to liven up again

and push that low pressure towards us. How quickly it does that

through next week is still open to some doubt but eventually,

I think, low pressure will arrive on our doorstep

and bring some more unsettled and at times wetter weather.

So, to sum up next week, certainly a fine start.

Rain on the horizon but how quickly it arrives,

again, a little bit of a question -

it depends how quickly that jet stream kind of wakes up.

But I will update you again with the timings on that tomorrow.