18/05/2017 Weather for the Week Ahead

Hello, a familiar cry in recent weeks has been -

"Well, we really need some rain." Well, it was the turn of a

large swathe of England to get some much-needed rain

during Wednesday. In fact, for some it rained all-day long.

I think some people might have thought, "OK, enough now."

And it kept on coming. But it really has made a difference.

Some places have had more than half-a-month's worth of rain

in 24 hours. But remember we talked about how dry April was

and looked at some of the record dry locations, from Edinburgh

and to London's Kew Gardens, which, in the whole of April

had just a few millimetres of rain. So, in May so far,

where some of us have seen a lot of rain, how has that changed?

Do your own drum roll here. Kew Gardens - look at this.

36mm up to 6pm on Wednesday, in the month so far. That's about

three quarters of average. But the transformation hasn't taken

place at the weather station at Edinburgh Gogarbank,

with just 9mm of rain so far, that's just a fifth of the

monthly average. So some places have had a transformation and

thanks to this weather system across England.

But there is more rain needed, particularly in parts of Scotland.

And this is how it looks going from Wednesday into Thursday.

Not a huge amount of rain in the forecast but there will be

showers falling. But there will be a much fresher feel to proceedings

as low pressure drags in some cooler, fresher air

into the UK. I say cooler - where you had all of that rain

during Wednesday, actually it will feel much warmer

because there will be some sunshine. But it'll be fresher,

that's the main thing, the humidity has gone down.

Lots of sunshine to begin the day, then the showers get going,

especially for Northern Ireland. There will be some in Scotland

and a few popping up in England and Wales. As ever with showers,

they are hit and miss. Catch one, though, could be heavy,

thundery and there is a risk of hail too.

Now, some spots in England may get a bit more rain as we go through

Thursday night and into Friday, as this area of low pressure runs

into the North Sea, as that pushes up the eastern side of the UK.

Elsewhere, we are looking at sunshine, and showers get going

again. You can see where low pressure is located, just to the

north-west of Ireland here

and it's around that we are seeing the instability,

the showers getting going, and again some heavy and thundery ones.

Now, the temperatures don't look up to much

but when you are in some sunshine it will be quite pleasant,

if you are in a shower, though, it will feel quite chilly.

Now, this is the picture for the weekend - an area of

low pressure is still very much close by

and that is still the driving force for getting lots of showers.

So, each day may start fine but then the cloud builds with the

heating of the day and we get those showers breaking out.

And again, there will be some heavy and thundery ones around too,

they may merge, in some spots, to give a longer spell of rain.

Now, on Sunday, those showers get going -

there may not be too many down towards East Anglia

and south-east England and again, with some sunshine,

it will feel quite pleasant.

Now, going into next week...

Well, it's a bit of a to and fro between low pressure and

high pressure.

It looks like we're going to get both at some stage during the week.

Low pressure, high pressure, then low pressure.

So it is a changeable picture. When low pressure is close by

there will be some showers, possibly heavy.

But when the high pressure is dominant and even in between

the showers, there will be some drier weather.

Nothing extreme in terms of temperature. By day, fairly close

to average, feeling pleasantly warm in some sunshine.

The nights, though, at times, could still be quite chilly.

And although there will be some rain at times, it's mainly

in the form of showers. For more prolonged wet weather,

in those parts of dry Scotland, the wait may go on.