01/03/2018 Weather for the Week Ahead

Hello, it's been called the Beast from the East

and some said at the start of this week it arrived with only a whimper.

"Where's my snow?" they said. Well, now clearly it's found its voice

and you know that if you're in Scotland's central belt,

where on Wednesday the Met Office issued a red warning, the highest

level for snow and the first for snow in the UK for four years,

and Edinburgh very much in the zone.

And the severe travel disruption will continue on into Thursday.

We've seen this before.

The snow showers coming in on a bitterly cold flow from the east,

but look at the circulation in the atmosphere to the south of the UK.

Anticlockwise around an area of low pressure.

Here it is, it's been called Storm Emma,

and it's about to shunt its moisture northwards into that cold air,

and that means for some of us, Thursday into Friday, not just

snow showers but a longer spell of more persistent snow on the way.

But it's certainly a messy situation wherever you are for Thursday

morning but particularly in those parts of Scotland, seeing the

heaviest and most frequent snow showers as the snow piles up.

Parts of north-east England, too, with those snow showers.

And then southern England into Wales, cloudier skies and outbreaks

of snow developing here on another bitterly cold day wherever you are,

the wind picking up in the south, so wind chill in Cardiff,

for example, it will feel like -10.

It's the first day of March, the first day of

meteorological spring. Remarkable doesn't quite cover it.

And then the snow really gets going later Thursday, Thursday night,

particularly across parts of south-west England and Wales,

where there's a Met Office amber "be prepared" warning in force.

And not just heavy, disruptive snow in places but drifting and potential

blizzards in the strong wind here, and perhaps the slightly less cold

air begins to reach in from the south, some at risk of seeing

freezing rain, too, so some nasty icy conditions

going into Friday morning. And still all the while,

the snow showers are peppering eastern Scotland.

And then a broader area of snow from south-east England,

perhaps into parts of Northern Ireland for a time on Friday.

Within this zone, varying intensities

but a good few centimetres in some spots

and of course travel disruption.

All of that feeding northwards Friday night into Saturday morning,

weakening as it does so.

But it's still further snow and then the hint of another disturbance

coming to the south on Saturday.

Again, reaching into that cold air, on its northern flank

it'll start to produce snow as we go Saturday night and into Sunday.

It is less cold the further south you are,

especially into the Channel Islands.

We have a broad area of low pressure to the south-west of us

through the weekend into the start of next week

just chucking off little smaller disturbances at times

which take the moisture northwards across the UK.

And there is a battle to see how long the cold air lasts

and the milder air takes over at some stage next week.

Look at the circulation around the low pressure here.

We're still in the blue, even though the wind flow here for some appears

to be from the south. What's going on?

Well, we have enough cold air coming in from the south-east

going around the area of low pressure.

And look, it just comes back into the UK.

It's become less cold as it does so but we're never really

tapping into some milder Atlantic air from the south-west,

which is why although it's less cold, it is still cold enough next

week to bring the risk of further snow.

We know it's unsettled cos it's low pressure, it'll be wet and windy

at times, we know there's a bit of a battle going on for when

and how long it'll take to get that milder air into the UK,

but as long as that battle takes place next week, there is

a risk of seeing some further snow,

mainly across the northern half of the UK, but maybe not only here.

The Beast from the East is in. It's in no hurry to go home.