03/12/2017 Weather for the Week Ahead

Hello. If you've been tempted to

shed the thickest of your winter garments this weekend,

with slightly higher temperatures, don't put them too far away.

You'll need those extra layers again by the end of this forecast period.

Cold air, you'll notice, not too far away,

but at the moment we are bringing in this milder air from the Atlantic.

It's certainly no heatwave,

but it has brought some slightly higher temperatures already.

Little ridge of high pressure

bringing in the westerly or north-westerly winds,

and underneath this high, we do have one wriggling weather front

making for a cloudy and a damp start to Sunday

across southern parts of England and South Wales.

Quite misty and murky as well.

Things here will brighten up through the day.

Another finger of cloud across parts of Northern Ireland

and south-west Scotland, into Wales and the south-west.

A few spots of rain along this.

Elsewhere, a fair amount of sunshine on Sunday.

Quite chilly up to the north-east, but not as cold as it has been,

and down to the south-west

we're looking at double-digit temperatures.

And for many, it's been a while since we've seen that.

During Sunday night, our area of high pressure still trying to

build its way in from the west,

it's going to push this frontal system though,

so we start Monday morning on a largely dry note.

There'll be some spells of sunshine through the day,

generally large amounts of cloud, and in western areas

that cloud will produce some outbreaks of patchy rain.

Further east is where you have the best chance of seeing some sunshine,

and those temperatures still not doing too badly,

certainly relative to what we've had recently -

eight, nine, ten degrees.

So here's our little ridge of high pressure, then,

as we move out of Monday into Tuesday.

The high drifts eastwards.

As these frontal systems start to squeeze in from the west,

the isobars squeeze together,

so the winds are going to start to pick up during Tuesday,

particularly up towards the north-west.

We'll see a lot of cloud,

some outbreaks of patchy rain in northern and western areas.

Best chance of any brightness again towards the east

and temperatures of seven to ten degrees.

During Tuesday night into Wednesday,

this weather front really gets stuck, we suspect,

across Scotland, so we'll see rain

continuing to feed into the north-west of Scotland

on the increasingly strong wind,

and then as we go on through the day on Wednesday

rain will spread into other northern and western areas,

and with the rain, strong winds - could see gales at times.

But those winds coming from the south-west,

so still pumping up some mild air for the time being.

Now, that is the precursor to this pretty deep area of low pressure

swinging its way through during Wednesday night into Thursday.

Strong winds, some heavy rain,

and then on the back edge of that system,

we start to get back into the cold air.

Could even be some snow on the back edge of that rain band

over hills in the north.

Certainly the showers in the north turning to snow, potentially even

to fairly low levels as we get deeper into Thursday.

And as we move through Friday into next weekend,

this is the set-up. Low pressure to the east, high pressure to the west.

Follow the white lines, the isobars, all the way up to the north.

We tap in, once again, to that cold Arctic air

which is going to sweep its way southwards across the country.

There'll be some showers, some of the showers will be wintry.

Some spells of sunshine as well.

Through the latter part of the weekend and into the following week,

there is just a chance we could bring frontal systems

or areas of low pressure in from the north-west,

and if that happens, yes, we'll see some rain and some strong winds,

but with things generally cold as we head through the weekend

and beyond, there's certainly the potential for some snow,

particularly in the north.

So keep those winter warmers close at hand -

you may need them again

as we head through the next ten days.