15/04/2017 Weather for the Week Ahead

What a difference a week makes.

Last weekend, and you've probably forgotten by now,

it was 25 degrees Celsius across the south of the UK.

This weekend, it's closer to 10 degrees across some parts of

the country, 15 at best.

And it is going to stay pretty chilly because the air is

coming in all the way from the Arctic.

Now, this time of the year, Arctic air doesn't feel that cold

because we got some strong sunshine about,

and there has been a bit of sunshine around during the course of Friday,

but, overall, a lot of cloud, there are some showers around as well, and

this cool pattern with plenty of cloud and spots of rain,

on and off, is going to continue, not just through the whole of

Easter, but it looks like well into next week as well.

So, these are the temperatures for Saturday.

Single figures in the far north of the country.

Maybe 15 in London, briefly,

depending on how much sunshine we are going to get.

And, then, into Easter Day, so, the early hours of Easter Day can

see some rain getting into north-western parts of the UK.

It will start off dry in the far south, and in fact,

if you are up very early in the morning, for some of us,

Easter Day is going to start off quite sunny, but very quickly,

the clouds will stream in off the Atlantic, and there is

still uncertainty, exactly, where this lump of rain is going to go.

It could go a little bit further south,

a little bit further north, but the thinking is that closer towards

the south west, the weather is going to be just that little bit better.

Now, on Easter Monday, this sort of flabby air of high pressure

close to our neighbourhood is actually out west.

And with low pressure here, the winds are coming in from

the north, so we still keep that cool airstream.

Look at that - single figure temperatures with showers

all the way down to the Norfolk coast.

Now, finally, as we get into Tuesday,

high pressure anchors itself across the UK

so that means that winds fall light, there will be clear skies.

But with clear skies, there is a good chance of some frost,

ground frost at the very least, and in fact, air frost in some places.

So, first thing on Tuesday in rural areas,

it could be down to freezing or below.

Then, during the day, struggling to around 10 or 11 degrees,

again just that little bit warmer in London.

And, then, on Wednesday, this weak weather front

just about squeezes itself into this area of high pressure.

When this happens,

it generally means there is not an awful lot of oomph to the weather

front, not an awful lot of rain,

it may just be an area of cloud sitting on top of Scotland

but to the south of that,

it does look as though it's going to be dry.

And, then, this high pressure sticks around just to the west of us.

You've got broadly low pressure here.

The winds blow around like so so we keep getting that flow of

north-westerly winds but actually with the high-pressure fairly close

to us on Thursday, in the centre of it,

there's not going to be much wind around at all.

So, it may end up being quite nice day.

And, next week, broadly speaking,

the high pressure is just again to the west of us.

Low pressure to the east. If you were watching yesterday,

it hasn't really changed.

Between these two, the air keeps on coming in from the north,

we're not getting anything from the South.

As long as that happens, it is not going to be warming up in a hurry.

Now, the thinking is that later next week,

that high pressure may drift away little bit and when that

happens, it opens the doors for low pressure to kind of sneak in.

But they are not going to be very big or wet or windy areas of

low pressure, it is because the jet stream is very weak.

When we get a week slow-moving jet stream -

and again I was talking about that yesterday - the lows aren't

particularly intense, so the weather is kind of neither here nor there.

So, the best way to describe it - it's looking pretty chilly,

there will be some sunshine, and just be prepared for a few showers.