04/02/2017 Weather for the Week Ahead

This week we said goodbye to our dry January and we opened up the doors

to a succession of low pressures and rain for the start of February,

but there were some other interesting facts about January.

Where you would expect the sunniest weather we had the sunniest weather,

the longer days across the south, but unusually our windiest weather

was across the tops of the Pennines, 94mph.

That's because we had the inversion for a lot of the month

and it whistled across the tops of the Pennines.

And unusually - you'd normally expect the highest temperatures

in the south - they were in western Scotland, which is also where

we saw some of the wettest weather, although it was a dry January.

But that wasn't the theme this week for the start of February -

those weather fronts were lining up.

Sunshine was in more limited supply but we did see plenty of it

today in Highland Scotland.

This was more the picture, however, further south as that low pressure,

that potential storm we were watching,

has been affecting southern areas.

Gusts of wind up to 75mph through the evening in The Needles,

so that's a severe gale.

That's all heading northwards for Saturday and this next low pressure

is going to batter parts of France,

giving us some more rain in the south, we think.

But actually, elsewhere will be some decent weather because with

the skies clearing, ice becomes a concern for Saturday and Sunday,

in fact, Monday morning as well. It's colder air across the country.

This weather system has been giving some snow and that will be

the case through Saturday in the north across Scotland.

But not too bad Northern Ireland, northern England -

the bulk of England and Wales, actually.

There will be showers in the west later,

and I mentioned earlier some rain close to southern and eastern areas

and an overhang of cloud, so not a warm day at sixes and sevens.

And through the evening and overnight,

a band of showers will cross the UK.

Again they'll fall as sleet and snow over the hills.

It's going to be a cold, frosty, potentially foggy start to our

Sunday morning with some ice around, but again, limited amount of showers

with a lot of places seeing some dry,

some reasonably bright weather, even some sunshine.

And that theme should continue into Monday with this ridge of

high pressure across us, but this does look ominous, doesn't it?

Taking up much of the North Atlantic,

that huge area of low pressure.

But Monday itself starts quiet, patchy fog and patchy ice.

It's really going to take its time, we think, this rain, to get in,

and because it's a slow process eastwards,

that means there could be a sizeable amount of rainfall with it.

Because you can see, even as we go through Monday evening and

into Tuesday, some snow, of course, over the hills.

It's still quite chilly air, but it does take

a long time to get into the east of England,

but here then having the wet and the windy day on Tuesday.

Brighter further west,

but notice we're starting to pick up the easterly wind,

almost the start of a battle zone entailing by the end of Tuesday,

and what we think is going to happen is that easterly wind will

push that weather front back west.

A very weak feature but it will obviously introduce

quite a bit of cloud.

But once that happens we're getting back into that cold

continental air, this Siberian high pressure starting to dominate

and block the passage of our low pressures.

So we're getting to somewhat of a battle zone, potentially,

and it's where that's going to lie that's causing the headache

for next weekend.

So, are we going to be on the cold side of that battle zone?

If that's the case we'll have some frosty mornings, hopefully some

sunshine and settled weather because of the high pressure over Siberia.

Or, if we're on the Atlantic side of that battle zone, well,

we'll have more cloud and potentially some rain as well.

So, all to play for for next weekend,

but between now and then not too bad this weekend,

then that wetter and windier weather coming through

during the course of Monday and Tuesday,

then it gets colder and drier until next weekend and then obviously

we'll be looking at that in more detail and we'll keep you posted.

The warnings are on the website.