18/10/2016 Weather for the Week Ahead

Yesterday, I was pointing out

how peculiar this October is turning out to be meteorologically,

dominated by easterly winds where normally westerlies rule the roost.

Now, temporarily, the westerlies are in charge, and they're

pushing this cold front across the country, a band of showery rain.

Behind that, sunnier skies but also lower temperatures, and along this

little frontal band we've got some fairly frequent and heavy showers.

And it's cold enough for a bit of the white stuff,

up over the tops of the Scottish mountains,

and a chilly and blustery wind not helping the feel of things.

Ten to 12 degrees in the afternoon for Scotland and Northern Ireland.

A little line of showers pushing into north-west England,

as well, so for the Manchester area, for example,

not feeling very pleasant, with frequent showers.

The odd shower further south, towards the west coast of Wales,

maybe the far south-west, but a lot of sunshine

after the early showery rain has cleared from the south-east.

But temperatures actually several degrees lower than they have

been recently. Now, we're going to go out into the Atlantic.

I pointed out Nicole yesterday.

It's been spinning around for a couple of weeks now - a hurricane.

It won't be a hurricane over the next few days,

but it will influence our weather indirectly.

As it surges northwards, it carries a lot of energy and helps to build

this downstream ridge closer to home,

that ridge of high pressure benefitting the more western

parts of the UK, where the weather will settle down, whereas closest to

the east coast we've got that area of low pressure,

and that'll keep the showers going here.

So a bit of a west/east split, actually, through Wednesday.

West is best for sunshine underneath that area of high pressure,

just the odd shower here, plenty of sunshine and lighter winds.

Further east, the blustery wind and further showers,

particularly near that east coast, keeping it cool,

just 12 degrees in Norwich, but everywhere, actually,

temperatures will be lower than they have been over the last few days.

Now, overnight, under clear skies out west,

that does mean from midweek onwards, really, as the map turns blue,

we're expecting some frost and some fog around as well first

thing in the morning, so be aware of that.

Further east, with that cloud and that breeze,

we will avoid most of the fog and the frost, but we'll continue with

that showery theme, particularly towards the eastern coastal areas.

And that's really the way we end the week, with that east/west split and

some of those showers drifting into the east coast of Scotland, perhaps.

Western areas again, after early fog and frost,

seeing the best of the sunshine, but wherever you are,

temperatures will not be spectacularly high.

Those easterlies are back in charge.

Normally, the jet stream meanders out of America and across the

Atlantic like this,

and it generates weather systems which push in from the west,

carrying bands of rain, but at the moment,

it looks like that jet stream is going to split again,

as it has done so frequently through this October, and that's

barring these rain-bearing weather systems coming in off the Atlantic.

Instead, they're being fended off by the easterly winds through

next weekend, and those easterlies look like being in charge

for some considerable time.

There's a question mark about whether fronts will get into

the far south-west, carrying milder air.

It does look as if those easterlies will continue to bring chilly

air in from the Continent.

But we're only in late October, so the easterlies are not that cold.

If we fast-forward to late November, it would be a very different matter.

We would be in for a particularly cold spell, with the threat of snow.

But we're not, so that's good news if you don't like cold weather.

Into early next week, that jet stream looks like staying blocked.

We keep those chilly easterly winds, though not too cold, hopefully,

and that threat of rain, albeit temporarily, in the far south-west.

That's it. We'll update you again tomorrow.