16/08/2016 Weather for the Week Ahead

If Monday's weather conditions made you start to think of the weekend

and potentially a weekend under canvas, do not tune out just yet.

You'll want to see the weekend forecast as it stands at the moment.

Completely different picture to how we started the week.

Blue skies almost all the way

from northern Scotland to the south coast of England

and the Channel Islands.

A glorious summer's day across much of the UK.

And not too hot, not too cold. Temperatures around 25 degrees.

Tuesday, we almost do it all over again.

Most under blue skies. Subtle changes, though.

High pressure drifts a bit further north across the North Sea.

That means more of a breeze down these eastern coasts,

so a little bit cooler here.

Bit of patchy cloud, but a bit warmer in the west.

27, 28 Celsius possible somewhere between Cardiff and Birmingham.

And around some of these western and northern coasts,

we could hit, quite easily, 24 or 25 degrees.

Go into the evening on a fine note, too, for many,

but just the chance of one or two heavy showers,

maybe the odd rumble of thunder in Northern Ireland,

and that's as this weather front

starts to creep its way in for Wednesday.

Its impact on Wednesday fairly limited to across Ireland.

Some occasional, maybe thundery rain.

Not going to rain all day long even where you see that wetter weather.

And an isolated chance of a shower towards south-west England

and the south-west of Wales.

Most, though, dry and sunny once again.

Coolest down these North Sea coasts. Warmer further west.

Temperatures drop a little bit in the far west,

though we could still hit 27 or 28 Celsius

somewhere across southern England.

Don't let this chart frighten you too much

as we go through into Thursday.

Things are starting to destabilise across southern areas,

greater potential for some showers, maybe the odd rumble of thunder.

Where we do see that, it could be torrential.

But there are increasing signs that those torrential thunderstorms

may be a bit further south across France.

Most continue with the dry story.

But even if those storms are across us, likely to stay dry,

parts of northern England and across Scotland.

But temperatures starting to fall away a bit.

We're having more of an easterly drift across the country,

so temperatures in the low 20s at the very best

instead of the high 20s.

But you want to take a bit more of a look at the chart

as we go towards the end of the week.

This looks quite a nasty area of low pressure pushing its way in.

The main weather front stays out to the west, but ahead of it,

we could start to see outbreaks of rain develop quite widely

across Ireland, parts of Wales,

and eventually central and southern England.

Some could be heavy and thundery.

It's certainly a cloudier, windier end to the day.

Parts of northern England and Scotland

likely to say driest for longest.

Still with some sunny spells,

especially away from some of those eastern coasts.

But temperature-wise, starting to feel much cooler indeed.

Then, as I said, if you're thinking about a weekend under canvas,

this is the sort of chart you definitely don't want to see.

A tightly packed area of low pressure

could bring strong to gale force winds.

Don't write the weekend off as far as potentially wash-out,

because the heaviest of the rain

will likely be across Scotland, maybe northern England, on Saturday.

Elsewhere, hit and miss showers, heavy and thundery.

But the real story could be the wind strengths.

Could be touching gale force

across the southern parts of the UK in particular.

That area of low pressure

will only slowly trundle its way eastwards as we go into Sunday,

so still potential for some wet and windy weather at times.

Some sunnier weather, too, but into the early part of next week,

a little ridge of high pressure builds,

settling things down, at least to begin with.

How long that little ridge of high pressure lasts will be crucial.

Looks like it could last most likely across southern areas,

sending occasional weather fronts across the north

with bands of rain and some blustery conditions.

That's the most likely set-up into next week.

But there is a chance that ridge of high pressure builds a bit further

and we end up with something like we've got

during the middle part of this week.

A weather front out towards the west,

many other parts of the UK staying dry,

best chance of sunshine towards the east.

So we'll keep an eye on that over the next few days,

and I'll be back to update you.