12/12/2017 Weather for the Week Ahead

Hello. The week has started with the weather making the news headlines.

That is never really a good sign.

Let's see if we can calm things down a little bit in the days to come.

If your Monday was particularly wet and windy

in this south-eastern corner,

it was thanks to that area of low pressure.

As that has moved further towards Scandinavia,

it's dragged its cloud away with it,

the winds have lightened

and as a consequence that's a pretty good recipe,

especially when you've got lying snow,

to see the temperatures really fall away.

So you could be starting Tuesday

at -9, -10 or -11 in the countryside.

In the major towns and cities down the spine of the country,

you could easily be looking at -4, -5, -6 degrees.

A really bitter start to the day.

There will still be a sprinkling of showers

across northern and eastern parts

and there's a risk of ice as well

quite widely across the British Isles.

So bear that in mind first up.

But once the day gets going, it is a decent sort of day.

Plenty of sunshine around, not doing that much for the temperatures.

And in the west, you even lose that as well,

certainly through Western Scotland, Northern Ireland,

the western fringes of Wales

as a new set of weather fronts bring rain initially.

But as it gets over the higher ground of Scotland,

the top end of the Pennines,

for a time there will be fresh snow.

So just bear that one in mind.

Here's the bigger picture as we get on into Wednesday.

As that front clears away,

so it just makes room for another mini front, if you like,

to come through on a rather noticeable

west and south-westerly wind.

That will have the effect of having seen one set of cloud,

wind and rain move away, it will just gang up those showers

and these will be really quite punchy, quite a bit of hail,

maybe a rumble of thunder and then things get

a little bit quieter again

until the next band of weather comes on through.

But I was saying that the breeze is

coming in from the west and south-west,

so for some, that will help to boost the temperatures to

the sort of levels you haven't seen for a day or two at the very least.

But as we head out of Wednesday into Thursday,

so will keep the isobars quite tightly packed,

so Thursday another blustery, showery sort of day.

No great heat in the atmosphere at this stage.

So we expect to see a little bit of sunshine,

but again if you catch those showers, you'll know all about it.

There could be a wintry flavour to some of those.

Now it's from there that we look towards

the end of the week to see the breeze no longer

coming from the west and south-west beginning

to crank around into the northerly which taps us in to the cold air

that sits there all the while to the north of the British Isles.

But out in the wings, may be signs of change.

We'll come to that in just a second.

We have to get through the rest of the week first.

So here we are, quite a few isobars there especially through

western parts through Thursday and indeed on Friday.

We begin see that process of just ratcheting

the isobars around to give us that northerly flow.

Forget all about the 10 or 11 degrees,

anywhere across the British Isles.

3, 4, 5 to about 7 or 8 just about covers it.

Friday into Saturday, here's the weekend.

Notice the flow is still very much from the north and north-west.

So quite a bit of dry weather

if you're protected from that north-westerly direction.

So eastern parts could see the very best of the sunshine,

but after a frosty start, again, I don't think you're going to see

too much in the way of temperature on those thermometers of yours.

And then come Sunday,

maybe just the first signs of that change that I was alluding to.

The mild air waiting in the wings already showing

itself into the south-west the British Isles.

So further ahead into the new week,

it could be milder than average,

but there were a lot of isobars

so it could stay windy and I think from that direction,

that's the direction we often get that breeze,

but also some cloud and rain at times.