20/02/2016 Weather for the Week Ahead

Hello. Thanks for tuning in.

Quite a bit happening on the weather front over the next few days

and also a fair bit of uncertainty for the start of next week.

In the short term, we're fairly confident

this weekend is just going to be pretty cloudy for most of us,

quite windy, too, and there's some rain in the forecast as well.

Now, this is the big view across the Atlantic.

There's a big ribbon of cloud stretching across the ocean here

and for us it means a pretty overcast weekend

with bits and pieces of rain.

Now, there's a weather front draped across the Atlantic,

looks a bit like bunting stretching from the UK

right across the North Atlantic to just south of Newfoundland here.

And this weather front separates two air masses.

We've got the colder air mass to the north,

coming all the way from Iceland and Greenland,

and we've got the slightly milder air - quite a bit milder, in fact -

coming all the way from the Azores.

And the UK is going to be on that border

between the cold and the mild air, and it means what it means.

So that means that across Scotland and Northern England

we'll have chilly conditions, there'll be some snow showers,

whereas in the south, significantly milder,

and on top of that you can see a lot of cloud

and bits and pieces of rain. Most of this rain

is actually going to be relatively light and fleeting in the wind.

The rain will be particularly heavy I think across the hills of Wales

and perhaps the north-west of England,

so this area here actually, through the course of Saturday and Sunday,

could even get a bit of local flooding.

The rain won't be heavy all the time,

it'll just keep falling in the same place,

because this weather pattern actually isn't shifting much.

It keeps coming in from the west,

and if you remember that imaginary line here -

the cold to the north, the mild to the south -

and here's that weather front here.

So that rain keeps falling on the same place over and over again,

hence there's that chance of a bit of flooding.

To the south it's cloudy and drizzly, 14 degrees,

maybe a bit of brightness, if we're lucky. To the north,

we keep that colder air, with around 5 or 6 degrees.

Now, early next week, the winds are going to shift in direction

and we'll get a shot of colder air coming in from the north.

Colder and drier air. So what does that mean?

For most of us, it means that we'll certainly feel the chill,

particularly on the North Sea coast with those cold northerly winds,

and cold enough for some wintry showers,

particularly across the Scottish hills

but also as far south as the Pennines.

So here's Monday. The temperatures may not look particularly low,

but because it's dry air, quite a strong wind,

it is going to feel cold. Now, here comes the uncertainty.

By the time we get to Tuesday,

we're looking at an area of low pressure approaching the UK,

and this is going to be a player for midweek weather.

Now, it looks like the area of low pressure

is going to go to the south. When it goes to the south,

we'll get weather that we'll have a look at in just a second.

But if it goes to the north, we'll get different weather altogether.

Let's have a look at this more likely track,

so the low decides to go towards the south.

What that means is it opens up colder air from the north,

and there is a chance of some snow across parts of the Midlands.

Now, if this low were to go a little bit further north,

we probably won't see any snow, it'll be milder.

But this is the more likely scenario.

And then once that low pressure's out of the way,

it does look as though eventually that milder air

is going to once again win and come in off the Atlantic.

So we're going to go a little bit up and down the hill

for the start of next week.

Let's summarise all that, cos a lot's happening.

Here's Monday's weather - pretty chilly, maybe some snow showers.

Then that risk of snow midweek

depending on where that area of low pressure goes,

and then by Friday, it does look as though things are going to turn,

once again, a little bit milder. Thanks for watching.