13/01/2018 Weather for the Week Ahead

Hello once again.

I've made much in recent days about just how quiet

the spell of weather has been.

Now all good things come to an end,

things are about to change,

so maybe no longer this sort of scene.

Very settled, quiet weather here,

not just across Shropshire,

across many areas.

The reason for the change

is that we're just beginning to squeeze up the isobars.

So a little bit more breeze,

just taking away that threat

of widespread fog to start the weekend.

There will be the odd pocket, I'm sure

but the most noticeable change,

certainly for western parts of the British Isles,

is that we've got a weather front

that's worked its way in from the Atlantic.

It's one of those days, I'm afraid,

certainly for Northern Ireland

till late on and then that rain

creeping into Western Scotland

through western parts of Wales,

down into the southwest of England.

Further east, the temperatures pretty close

to where we've been of late,

quite a flow of southeasterlies

dragging showery bursts of rain

up towards the northern isles,

maybe the odd spit and spot across some of the east

of both England and Scotland.

Here we are through the night. Not a great deal changes.

The front rather dies a death,

and through Sunday becomes a band of cloud that just

wanders a bit further east,

the wind freshening all the while

away towards the northwestern quarter of Scotland.

Eventually it turns wet and windy here.

But as that front moves across the south,

whatever's left of it,

I think it offers the opportunity of brighter skies...

Hurrah, at last!

..to show their hand across Wales and parts

of the West Midlands, maybe up to the north of England

in one or two spots,

until through Sunday night and into Monday

we drag this weather front down.

Notice the flow ahead of it is south and southwesterly,

so relatively mild.

Relative to what?

Relative to what follows on behind -

cold air floods in.

Monday, late Monday, the day of transition.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, we are into quite a decidedly

different-feeling air mass.

These the best of the temperatures on Monday.

They drop once that weather front

has gone through,

because no more, as I say the south and southwesterlies -

we crank the isobars round in to a west and northwesterly

and follow them all the way back

to find the origin of the air mass

that we get in the middle part of the week.

It is from Iceland and Greenland.

Modified, it has to be said, as it works its way

down towards us across the seas,

but look at these temperatures -

3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

Wintry showers abound across northern

and western parts of the British Isles.

It will feel that much colder

given the strength of the wind as well.

I suspect, that right through the middle

of the forthcoming week

we will have our "feels like" temperatures out

spinning wildly to show you that it will be feeling

much, much colder, not that you'll need us to tell you.

What you'll also notice

is the abundance of wintry showers

again and again across these northern

and western areas.

This is Wednesday night.

We move some moisture across the southern half

of the British Isles on its northern flank

because it's running through cold air,

some of that rain is undoubtedly going to change into snow.

We'll keep you posted on that.

That's Wednesday night into Thursday.

The rest of the week, quite a familiar pattern.

A lot of westerly and a lot of it as well.

Low pressure to the north,

high pressure somewhere out in the Atlantic.

Through the weekend, we just change the orientation -

briefly, it has to be said.

The winds, there will, again, be a lot of it in the northerly

or northwesterly direction,

but that wind easing with time as we get on through the weekend.

So, over the next few days,

the themes are - it will often be windy,

It will often be wintry,

and it will feel, given the combination of those two things,

much, much colder than of late.