03/05/2017 Weather for the Week Ahead

The last Weather for the Week Ahead I promised you more

information about April and how dry it was.

The full UK picture is now in from the Met Office and it looks

like this.

A brown area, drier than average

for April.

Little fleck of white in Devon, mainly in northern Scotland

close to average and a little bit

of blue above average rainfall.

There isn't much blue, there's a lot of brown.

And most places were drier than average, for the UK the tenth

driest April on record.

If you're wondering what the difference is between the rain

in that little speck of blue and the driest place in the UK,

keep watching, the answer will be revealed.

Tuesday's weather was

all about temperature contrast.

This was from the west of Scotland

and in fact Scotland had its

warmest day of the

year so far, 21 at Achnagart

in the highlands.

But just 10 around the Humber with cloud and the breeze off the sea.

These differences will remain for several more days to come along

with plenty of dry weather because our weather pattern isn't changing.

Areas of low pressure being held at bay in the Atlantic by a blocked

weather pattern with high pressure

to the north of us around that.

The east or north-easterly wind

coming in off the

North Sea coast keeping it cool, keeping some warmth in the

sunshine though across western parts of the UK.

While most places are dry a bit of patchy light rain for parts

of East Anglia and south-east England during Wednesday,

not amounting to very much.

Best of the sunshine,

northern counties of northern

England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

A similar picture on Thursday.

From the cloud across southern areas just one or two showers.

Not very many.

Still those temperature contrasts as there will be on Friday.

The wind will pick up, quite gusty across southern areas here.

Perhaps a little bit more sunshine across the south than we're

going to have over the next couple of days.

There's still a chance the weather front may flirt with the

southwest of the UK Friday night.

Isles of Scilly, Cornwall into Saturday morning.

Some rain, but still uncertain about that.

The picture for most of us for Saturday into Sunday is a dry one.

By Sunday the wind is a little lighter but there could be

more cloud pushing into some of these North Sea coast.

Again, temperature contrasts. Some spots reaching into the high teens.

Into next week the high pressure changing position but it's an

important change. As it moves towards

the northwest of us the flow of air more

from the north and that means colder air begins to push southward

across the UK.

Colder for a time next week.

That's going to be most noticeable where it's been so warm this week.

Less noticeable where you're so cold at the moment along the

North Sea coast.

There is a risk of frost at night, not a widespread threat but

a few pockets across the northern half of the UK.

Gardeners and growers, heads up about that.

Some weather disturbances could bring showers southwards

across the UK.

The flow of air from the north is not a particularly moist one

so we don't think that's going to add up to very much,

but a little bit more unsettled for a time.

I promised you the difference between the really wet place

in April in the UK and the driest place.

The difference between the blue and somewhere in the brown.

They're not too far apart.

The wettest place in April was Cluanie Inn in highland Scotland.

There is an inn at Cluanie Inn.

In Edinburgh a weather station recorded just 3mm.

A difference of 220mm over the space of 173 miles if you go via the A9.

Got to love the British weather.