25/01/2017 Weather for the Week Ahead

Hello. How's the winter been for you so far?

Mild for the most part, a few colder spells with some fog and frost,

but not much rain.

In fact, that theme extends back to the autumn.

This chart shows rainfall for autumn,

the brown colours indicating below average rainfall,

and as you can see, most of the UK had a dry autumn.

And that has continued into the early part of the winter

as well - again, in December,

the majority of the UK coloured brown, with a few exceptions.

And it remains mostly dry through January as well.

And that is because the jetstream,

which tends to carry our rain-bearing weather fronts,

has been deflected for much of this winter away from our shores.

And in its place, high pressure has been the dominant force,

if you like, through the last few weeks.

It's still there, underneath that area of high pressure,

with quite light winds,

that has allowed fog to form in recent nights and lingering

into the day, and that is the case again,

we've got freezing fog around with a possibility of some disruption,

particularly across these more southern and eastern parts

of the UK, where the winds are lightest.

The fog gradually lifting into cloud, not so much sunshine

around, as we saw during Tuesday, it will feel chillier.

Best of the sunshine further north and west across England and Wales.

But I'm afraid it will feel distinctly chilly across

the more southern and eastern areas.

On Tuesday, some places reach ten degrees,

three or four might be the best I can offer you on Wednesday

afternoon, with perhaps the odd light snow flurry.

As I say, the best of the sunshine across England and Wales

will be further north and west, a decent day here.

For Scotland and Northern Ireland, cloudier but milder here,

nine or ten Celsius, with some patchy rain,

particularly across the far north-west of Scotland.

But as we head into Thursday, we will start to draw air in

around that high pressure from a very cold source indeed,

the heart of Europe, which has been freezing for some days now.

This air will have a real bite to it by the time it reaches

our shores on Thursday.

It's going to feel really quite raw, I think, in that wind.

The odd snow flurry, but a lot of dry weather out there.

But the main theme will be the chill,

and temperatures in some places across more central and

eastern parts of the UK will struggle to get above freezing.

If you add on the wind, then it's going to feel a lot colder

than that, despite the fact that many of us will see some sunshine.

But into Friday, still pretty chilly out there in the wind,

especially across the more northern and eastern areas.

Turning a little bit milder further south and west.

A bit of patchy rain around, though no great amounts.

And actually, as we go into the weekend,

weather fronts will try to stagger in off the Atlantic.

The timing of these features and the position of the rain,

difficult to nail down.

So, don't take the position of these blobs of blue too literally.

There will be some rain around through this weekend,

and on balance, it will start to turn a little bit milder as well.

Some places getting up into double figures again on Sunday.

There could be a bit of patchy rain making its way across

to eastern areas, but still a lot of dry weather.

The winds will be fairly light,

temperatures somewhat higher than they have been recently.

Looking further ahead

as we end the month,

we're going to see the jetstream

try to wake up and try to push

weather systems in off the Atlantic,

but they have been trying to do that

for some days now, and the computer

models have been a bit premature in

spreading rain across the country.

So, this comes with

a little bit of a health warning.

If the jet does succeed through

the early part of February,

we'll see some rain,

but if it continues to be blocked,

and there is some chance it will do,

then it remains dry

with some frost and some fog.

Big question marks, we will update you again tomorrow.