15/01/2018 Weather for the Week Ahead

Hello. The Atlantic jet stream awakens this week.

Not only does it mean faster flight times from the US to the UK,

but for us, weather-wise,

a big change compared to conditions of the past few weeks.

We're bringing colder air our way for the week ahead.

Some significant snow at times, for the mountains at least,

in Scotland, Northern Ireland, northern England,

but across the board, much windier conditions for all of us.

And those windier conditions setting into the start of Monday.

Overnight, this weather front pushing its way southwards

and eastwards, bringing gales and severe gales. It then opens

the door to polar maritime air coming in from the north-west.

That'll be in place across northern Scotland to begin with.

A chillier start here, some showers already wintry.

England and Wales though, lots of cloud, outbreaks of rain -

most persistent for the morning rush-hour. East Anglia

and the south-east will take till the afternoon before you see

a little bit of sunshine, but elsewhere,

sunny spells, scattering of showers through the afternoon,

some heavy with hail and thunder. Sleet

and snow across parts of Scotland and later Northern Ireland, where

temperatures will drop to around three or four during the afternoon.

Now, snow showers become a bit more abundant through Monday

night into Tuesday and turning increasingly

wintry across northern England, Northern Ireland too.

In between them some very icy conditions around

and that'll be the story for much of this week, as we continue with

a general north-westerly airflow continuing to feed cold air our way.

So into Tuesday, risk of ice, sleet and snow across northern

England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, even to lower levels at times.

The snow risk further south is mainly on the hills.

Showers here will be of sleet, rain and hail.

In between, always see a little bit of sunshine, but when the showers

come your way, you will notice the wind-chill more than anything else,

especially when you consider wind-chill values

well below freezing.

So, a cold day on Tuesday,

cold night to come to take us into Wednesday.

Still got isobars packed in on the chart,

coming in from the north-west.

Still a noticeable wind-chill for all on Wednesday.

Sunshine and showers name of the game again and the snow amounts

continuing to tot up across the hills of Scotland, Northern Ireland

and potentially northern parts of England.

Now, for midweek we've got

that Atlantic jet stream quite strong at times now.

The problem is, with such a strong jet stream running towards us,

when you get subtle variations in wind speed on it,

subtle variations in direction,

we can see it develop quite rapidly, some potent areas of low pressure.

Now, all models are pointing to the risk of a significant low-pressure

system zipping across the UK through Wednesday night into Thursday.

The big question is the exact position of it,

how deep it is and so, how stormy it will be.

The stormiest conditions will be in the southern flank.

At the moment, England and Wales could bear the brunt of that.

Gales and severe gales into the start of Thursday.

Snow as it clears away,

but it's the wind that's the biggest concern at the moment.

And that low pressure system does zip off quite quickly on Thursday,

putting us back into sunshine and blustery showers and back to those

north-westerly winds we'll have seen on Tuesday and Wednesday.

So Friday, very similar to Tuesday and Wednesday -

sunshine and showers, showers most frequent to the north

and the west, and wintry across parts of Scotland, northern England

and Northern Ireland in particular, with an added wind-chill.

Into the weekend, it looks like low pressure will be to the east

of us by this stage, so the winds

will go even more northerly for a time.

Still feeding in some very cold air but starting to ease a little bit.

That means that into the start of the weekend at least,

we could have significant overnight frost.

The question is how many frosty nights we'll see because

of how quickly things will change later in the weekend into next week.

Some models are starting to point to the fact of low pressure

moving into the west once again and if that does,

we'll start to drag our air back in from the south.

So after quite a windy and wintry spell, with much colder

conditions of late, by the end of the weekend, maybe into next

week, things could be turning milder and with it wetter and windier.

We'll keep you updated on that though as we go through

the coming days. Take care.