18/03/2016 Weather for the Week Ahead

Hello. Our dry week of weather set to continue.

In fact, Thursday was a beautiful day.

Lots of spring sunshine and some warmth in the story as well.

We had numerous glorious Weather Watcher pictures sent in.

This is just one to illustrate the point in Cambridge,

hardly a cloud in the sky.

But the lion's share of the sunshine

and the warmth was reserved for Braemar

in the Highlands of Scotland.

19 degrees, that's 66 Fahrenheit,

but just down the road, barely 60 miles away in Aberdeen,

a disappointing cool, grey afternoon with 8 degrees.

And on the exposed coast,

temperatures barely above 6 degrees.

There was a lot of coastal fog. It was cooler here.

But it does look as though that cloud will continue to be

a story into Friday's weather, creeping in at the North Sea

and drifting steadily westwards throughout the day.

It's going to be a cooler, cloudier scenario through Friday.

The best of the sunshine, really reserved for

just the west-facing coast and Northern Ireland.

Highest values perhaps of around 11 degrees, feeling cooler

and disappointing with the cloud thick enough for the odd

spot or two of drizzle along North Sea coasts.

The high pressure that has been in the driving seat for so long,

starts to drift its way steadily south and west.

That marks a change to continue as we move into the weekend.

Certainly, it's going to be

a cloudy theme as we move towards the weekend.

Predominantly dry,

but all the time that cloud thick enough perhaps for the odd

spot or two of drizzle, the breeze more of an issue

and a cooler feel across the south-east.

But predominantly dry on Saturday.

The high then starts to allow a few weather fronts to push in

to the far north and west.

So some subtle changes to come for the second half of the weekend.

The winds will strengthen in the far north-west

and that's going to introduce the risk of a few scattered showers,

something we've not seen for a time

and certainly a noticeably cooler feel generally across Scotland,

highs of 7 to 10 degrees.

The winds strengthen again into Monday

and we could see more significant outbreaks of showery rain

into the far north and west by the end of the day.

But, predominantly still a quiet, dry but overcast story.

That weather front will just squeeze its way

potentially across the UK during Wednesday.

Subject to change, but there is the potential for a subtle,

slow change to develop through the middle of the week,

with outbreaks of showery rain.

So it's a subtle change across the UK.

Where is this change coming from?

We need to look towards the United States where there is nothing

subtle about the weather story into next week.

There's the potential for a cold northeaster,

a snowstorm may be moving its way through the Great Lakes

before a plume of warm air moves in from the south-west.

These boundaries between the cold and warm air,

that's where the jet stream is lying.

That, really, is going to inject some oomph,

some power into the jet stream perhaps across the Atlantic.

Which means that we could start to see a change in this

blocking pattern that we've had for so long.

This week, we've had this high pressure in control,

but this oomph, this energy,

is just going to allow the jet stream to amplify,

to squeeze a little bit closer together

and allow the high pressure to continue to drift west, which means

that we might see the winds increase and the risk of more showers.

I'm sure it's not escaped your attention that the end

of our 8 to 10 day period is the Easter weekend.

So, that means that there is an increasing risk, potentially,

of some rain.

It's not all doom and gloom, there should be some spring sunshine

to come, but it will continue to feel on the chilly side