14/05/2016 Weather for the Week Ahead

It's that time of day when we take a look forward at the weather trends

for the next 6 to 10 days.

But before we do, let's talk about the weekend.

Now, just two weekends ago we had snow in the forecast.

Last weekend followed the warmest weekend of the year so far.

This weekend, somewhere in the middle - around about average.

Temperatures have certainly lowered in the north

through the day on Friday behind this cold front

because it has introduced a lot more cloud and colder air

and that process continues through the night.

So after the muggy nights that we've seen through the week,

a much colder start to our Saturday morning

with some grass frost around.

Gardeners beware - this weekend we will have cold,

potentially frosty nights.

So after a cold start, some sunshine around,

but it will feel quite chilly

because of that brisk wind near eastern coasts and here we'll likely

see a bit more cloud bubbling up and perhaps a few showers.

The west looks best for sunshine.

And indeed, after the cloudy day across Scotland,

more sunshine through Saturday will make it feel warmer.

Temperatures will lift into the, well, mid teens, potentially.

Not as warm for Northern Ireland as we've seen in recent days,

or indeed across Wales and the south-west.

We will have lost that muggy air which resulted

in a few storms through Friday evening.

It will be a very different day here

and already that fresher air was with us further east.

But even though temperatures have fallen,

the forecast UV levels are still high,

even in Scotland, actually, during the day on Saturday.

It's not temperature-dependent, so bear that in mind.

Chilly start on Sunday morning, some grass frost potentially.

Starting to lose the northerly wind, though, on Sunday,

so hopefully giving us some sunshine

and without the breeze it should feel pleasant enough.

But again, I think eastern areas will see rather more cloud

and the risk of a few showers around.

So, let's sum up the weekend.

Yes, it's going to be cooler than it has been through the week.

We'll have the chilly nights but we will have some sunny spells,

some dry weather, very usable weather.

And that settled trend continues into Monday.

Again, some sunshine coming through, winds generally light,

so it'll feel warm enough in that strong May sunshine.

By Tuesday, however, things are starting to look

a little bit messier - more unsettled.

We start to pick up our first Atlantic low pressure,

so it starts to bring in, we think later in the day,

the rain across the western side of the country,

and that's this area of low pressure.

Now, detail from day to day we will, of course, fine tune,

but it looks as if this one will bring some fairly heavy rain

and potentially some strong winds,

even some gales depending on how deep it becomes.

And it looks as if probably Tuesday night into Wednesday

we will see the heaviest rain.

We could see - we COULD see some quite nasty conditions

for a time, so that's one that we are going to watch quite closely.

That then clears out the way but already you can see behind me

we've got more rain, so more weather fronts waiting in the wings.

So whilst earlier in the week we thought things would start to

settle down with a passage of low pressure,

it now looks as if the jet stream, our upper winds,

will be blowing those low pressures right across the UK.

Obviously any perturbations in that jet stream

will determine how far to the north or indeed to the south

the low pressures, the subsequent low pressures, take their track,

and of course how much rain we will see towards

the north or the south,

but whilst it was looking earlier in the week as if

by the end of the coming week

and into the weekend things will be settling down and warming up,

it now looks as if it might be

the beginning of the following week before we see that trend.

So at the moment it looks like we'll see average temperatures

with some sunshine and also some rain at times.

We'll keep you updated.