09/10/2016 Weather for the Week Ahead

Thanks for joining me. Very quiet on the weather front across the UK,

but before we go into the details,

let's just get a quick update on Hurricane Matthew.

Of course has caused a lot of devastation,

it has been devastating that Florida coast into Georgia

and South Carolina, but the storm's weakening now

and we're thinking that it's going to pull out into the Atlantic

and then possibly loop back down again

as a much, much weaker storm.

So it's not over yet, this story's going to continue,

but it is a dying storm.

Still powerful at this stage, though.

Back home, what have we got?

Well, we've got an area of high pressure that's driving our weather

but also this area of low pressure is sending a breeze in our direction

and that actually was responsible for a few heavy showers

across south-eastern areas of the UK during the course of Saturday.

And actually, we're going to see a very similar pattern on Sunday -

a breeze will continue to blow in a few showers,

you see it's picking up moisture off the North Sea

and then sending these showers in our direction,

so anywhere from Newcastle, Hull, down into London

we could catch a few. The best of the weather will always be

across western areas - this is where you're going to get more sunshine.

Then Sunday night into Monday,

the winds will be light, generally, inland,

not necessarily light along the east coast -

we might even have further showers here.

The basic message is, it is going to be quite a chilly night,

Sunday night into Monday, and first thing, particularly in rural areas,

so we're talking about the frost hollows, frost pockets,

there might be some mist, a bit of ground frost in one or two areas,

but that's going to be the exception rather than the rule.

But Monday morning is going to be nippy.

Then that same pattern continues - that low pressure

that we saw earlier on out there towards the east

is still sending a breeze in our direction,

picking up the moisture off the North Sea,

so again we'll see some showers.

Some will penetrate quite deep inland, into the Midlands,

but these western areas will have the best of the weather.

Northern Ireland might actually catch quite a bit of cloud

and there could be some spots of rain.

That pattern is still with us,

so we've got the high across Scandinavia,

there are sort of weather fronts stuck in its southern periphery,

and this low, which we're going to talk about a little bit later on,

that's trying to push in, but not just yet.

So here's Tuesday,

and one thing that you will notice on Tuesday

is that the wind is going to be picking up,

so actually for some of us,

particularly for folks along these eastern coasts,

it is going to feel cool with that increasing breeze,

which will increase, actually, even further

as we head into Wednesday.

In fact, round some of the coasts and headlands,

it could be rather windy, and only 13 degrees

with a stiff easterly will feel pretty nippy.

One of the reasons we have a strong wind is,

look at these straight isobars.

We quite often talk about isobars tightly packed together,

but we don't talk about the shape an awful lot.

Straight isobars often mean quite strong winds.

Imagine sort of like running down a motorway.

When you get curved isobars, just like round a roundabout,

you tend to slow down, the winds quite often slow down.

When you have straight isobars, you get a stiff wind.

Now, this low here that we've been looking at is trying to push in.

Here it is, say round about Friday time -

tries to push in but is still stuck.

Let's have a look at this in a little bit more of a schematic way.

This is called an omega block.

You have to kind of squint to see the letter omega here,

but it is there.

When that happens, the weather's stuck in a rut,

so the high pressure's not moving anywhere,

it's kind of sitting there, the low pressure's trying to come in,

and the thinking is it might sort of squeeze in Friday into the weekend.

But until that happens, for now, it's looking mainly dry,

rather cloudy, and remember those straight isobars?

It is going to stay on the breezy side

with some chilly mornings as well. Thanks for watching.