23/03/2017 Weather for the Week Ahead

It's time to find out if the weather is going to be behaving itself

over the next few days,

because it certainly didn't behave itself today.

Not a great day on the weather front.

Lots of cloud and outbreaks of rain.

I was caught in a downpour as well.

Let's have a look at the satellite picture

and it really tells the story.

Look at these clouds spiralling around right across the UK.

This is what brought the downpours - an area of low pressure,

with the rain-bearing clouds and some thunderstorms too.

I'll overlay the jet stream, and you can see that it directly

follows the shape of the motion of these clouds.

The cold air is always to the north of the jet stream,

warmer air to the south.

Clearly, that jet stream is way towards the south of us,

so we've got this blob of blue, blob of cold air that's over us,

but watch what happens over the next few days.

We say goodbye - off it goes -

to the blob of blue and we get a blob of yellow.

So, that's slightly warmer air heading our way

so the outlook is looking pretty optimistic.

I can't guarantee it will be sunny both days this weekend, but at least

the winds are going to be light, and it's going to feel

just that little bit warmer.

In the short term, Thursday morning, there is some rain around across

one or two parts of the country, central and maybe southern areas.

Very nippy in Scotland first thing on Thursday in the Glens -

could be as low as minus eight Celsius.

The morning on Thursday could start off cloudy with some rain,

but in the afternoon it certainly looks a lot better

for most of the UK.

Not for everybody because across the south-west and some of

the central southern areas there will be a little more cloud.

This is basically the remnants of the bad weather that we had

during the course of Wednesday.

It is moving away to the south but not quite clearing all of the UK,

the whole country.

To the north of that, fine weather, from the Midlands, northern England,

Northern Ireland, into Scotland, beautiful weather here.

A bit nippy - temperatures in some places

no higher than around seven or eight Celsius.

And this is Thursday evening.

It's such a stubborn weather front.

It is still there, still straddling,

still hugging that coast from Kent all the way down to Plymouth.

Then on Friday what is happening is this area of high pressure

is kind of expanding,

starting to dominate the weather and push that weather front away.

But it isn't going to go away completely because still on Friday

we have probably a little bit more cloud.

This is going to be light stuff - cloud and a little bit of rain.

That's pretty much it.

The rest of the country is looking fine, but the far north,

in the Northern Isles, a few spots of rain.

And then finally when we get into Saturday and Sunday

that high pressure well and truly anchors itself across the UK.

In the centre of the high, the winds will be light, and around it

perhaps a bit more of a breeze.

The cloud will be very hard to forecast over the weekend and

into next week, but this sort of summarises the fact that it

will be dry and those temperatures will start climbing.

The mornings may be chilly.

If you have a clear day and a clear night in high pressures with

light winds you will get a touch of frost.

How about beyond the weekend?

Once the high anchors itself across the UK, it sticks around.

The winds blow around the high like so.

It doesn't take too much of a wind to make it feel pretty chilly

around coastal areas, so in the middle of the high

it'll be nice, warm and sunny.

Around coastal areas it will be chilly,

so, if you're heading

off to the coast for the weekend,

be prepared for a chilly breeze.

That sea around the country is pretty cold this time of the year -

the coldest time actually.

Whereas inland into next week,

with the light winds and the clear blue skies,

temperatures will be getting back to a respectable high teens,

so it'll feel a little bit

more like spring. Bye-bye.