19/01/2017 Weather for the Week Ahead

Hello. Changes in the weather for the next six to ten days

are going to be very slow changes

because we have got anticyclonic conditions dominating.

But I suppose the biggest piece of weather news

that broke on Wednesday was the fact that

it has been confirmed, the figures are in,

and 2016, globally, was the warmest on record.

Which takes us back to what Nick was telling you about

if you were watching yesterday evening,

that so far this winter, the UK, at least,

has been a little milder than average, and drier.

Now, that said, it's not too far away

that we've got some very cold air indeed.

Severe and harsh winter weather is dominating across much of Europe,

and we are very close by, as you can see,

to the western edge of that cold weather.

It's that cold we've seen snow on the beaches in Valencia in Spain.

And we will still be affected across southern areas on Thursday morning.

For the majority, the cloud is keeping things relatively mild.

But there'll be pockets of frost elsewhere,

but mainly in the south.

And that will be the story over the coming few days.

So, for most of us, it is a very similar weather scenario

Thursday to Wednesday.

There'll be subtle differences, as there always are.

Some mist and fog in the morning, and this is low cloud anyway,

so hill fog will prevail.

And then we could have a bit more cloud

coming into East Anglia, for example.

But some more breaks in the cloud in the north of Scotland.

And whilst earlier in the week,

we struggled at three or four in the south,

we may get to six or seven.

So we have evened our spread of temperatures

a little bit in the past 24 hours.

And that will continue through Thursday night into Friday.

So Friday morning, again, we get the frost mostly in the south,

which is where we'll see the best of the sunshine.

But there will be some pockets of frost and sunshine elsewhere.

And of course, some fog,

which at this time of year takes a while to clear.

And we basically keep that weather pattern until the weekend.

If anything, I think we will see the cloud thinning,

and there will be a little bit more sunshine coming through,

which means some colder nights, more widespread frost

not as limited, if you like, to southern areas.

And therefore, it will be colder by day,

it will take a little while longer for those temperatures to get up.

They will be more like fours and fives

than sixes and sevens, potentially.

The reason? Well, high pressure is still with us.

We're just starting to feed in a little bit of that colder air

not too faraway, as I mentioned earlier.

Similar story on Sunday.

Very little rain and drizzle - just in the north and west.

Again, after the chilly start, temperatures are only lifting

to four or five degrees, so a little bit below par.

And it is very little change, really, as we head into Monday.

As you can see, again, it is four to six degrees Celsius.

We do start to see a strengthening in the wind towards the north-west,

the approach of a weather front,

and the approach of that weather front

will start to bring about a change

through the early part of next week.

But it is a very, very slow process.

So that is low pressure

starting to whisk in across the North Atlantic

allowing the weather fronts to come in

in this wedge of slightly milder air.

But, dominating either side of that, the cold air.

And you can see that really is dominant -

even early next week - across much of Europe.

It's dense air, it's cold air, it takes a while to clear away.

And how quickly that low pressure moves into the UK

depends on how quickly we can start to clear

that cold air across western parts of Europe.

So, yes, that is the uncertainty, really, in the forecast.

Eventually, it looks as if we will see rain from the north and west,

but until then, some more chilly nights and chilly days.