27/10/2016 Weather for the Week Ahead

Hello. October can be a curious month for weather.

Sometimes it goes against expectations.

We're reaching the peak of autumn -

you might expect deeper areas of low pressure,

storms that bring the leaves down -

but sometimes the opposite can happen.

It all get rather quiet.

Temperatures go up, not down, helped where you get some sunshine.

Many of us saw that during Wednesday,

lifting the temperature to near 20 Celsius in late October,

that is of course well above the average.

And that's where temperatures are staying by day and night

for many of us over the next few days.

Low pressure to the north of us, high pressure to the south of us,

the flow of air around those weather systems

bringing that air in from the Atlantic.

That's a mild direction. Nothing changing any time soon,

in fact we'll waft this mild air across us all through the weekend,

even into the start of next week.

We've had some mild Halloweens, even warm ones, in recent years.

What's Monday? Halloween. It looks like another mild one.

Indications of colder air lurking to the north of the UK,

and the forecast suggests that will try to come our way next week.

When it arrives, though, and exactly what weather it comes with

still open to question - I'll address that in a moment.

First, though, the next five days in detail.

This is Thursday's weather.

Foggy start in southern England, dense fog in places.

A weather front in north-west Scotland -

outbreaks of rain here, and a strong wind.

Many places, though, will have a dry Thursday -

broken clouds, sunny spells,

breezy, especially across the northern half of the UK.

Shouldn't affect the mild feel to the weather, 13 to 16 widely,

but maybe as high as 18 Celsius.

Rain moves south across Scotland

and Northern Ireland on Thursday evening.

On Friday, the weather front stalls,

and then tries to head back northwards again.

Close to that weather front on Friday, northern England,

North Wales, Northern Ireland, southern Scotland. This is where

you'll see the thickest cloud, maybe some patchy rain.

Northern Scotland, sunny spells, bright.

The rest of England and Wales, a lot of cloud, a few sunny spells, mild.

As we go into the weekend,

high pressure really starts to mark itself across the UK

as it expands its coverage of settled weather, pushing

that weather front northwards away from Northern Scotland.

Most places will have light winds.

Looks like a lot of cloud to come, but still it is mild.

There could be some mist and fog to start the day, slow to clear,

and again on Sunday. There may just be a weather front

getting closer to the north-west of the UK on Sunday -

that's still around going into Monday as well,

thanks to an area of low pressure just lurking to the west of us,

and it looks like this is going to be an important player

in our weather next week and how it evolves.

Here's Monday's detail for you.

Uncertainty about how close the fronts are to the west of the UK,

but the further west you are, you could see some outbreaks of rain.

Other places remain under the influence of high pressure -

yeah, it's a mild Halloween.

So how things play out next week

really depends on what happens with this area of low pressure,

how it eventually exits the sea, either pushing across the UK

or declining innocuously southwards away from us,

and as it does so, pulling in that colder or cooler air

as temperatures sink closer back to normal.

We could tap in to this wodge of cold air to the north-west of us,

bringing those temperatures down,

We could tap in to this colder air in Scandinavia,

again bringing the temperatures down. We'll see how it plays out,

but it looks like cooler weather eventually arriving

as the week goes on, temperatures returning to normal.

But the sort of weather it comes with still looks fairly benign.

Yes, we may see a bit of rain or a few showers,

but it looks pretty quiet,

and that means a continued lack of those deep areas of low pressure,

really active weather that'll bring the leaves down,

and possibly cause more damage.

They are not in the forecast next week,

and indeed, at the moment, as far as the eye can see.

I know many watching this broadcast may say, long may it last. Bye-bye.