17/03/2018 Weather for the Week Ahead

Hello. Our weather fortunes are about to take a significant dip.

Forget about spring, we are heading for a shot of winter,

make no mistake about that.

Across central and southern parts of the British Isles,

we've enjoyed a burst of spring.

That comes very much to an end as we get on into Saturday.

The reason for the change is that an area of low pressure which has

fed in relatively mild air from the south-east

has been elbowed aside.

It's all about an area of high pressure,

feeding in this bitter easterly wind

to all parts of the British Isles as we start the weekend.

Continuous snow for a time across southern England and Wales.

Further north, wintry showers abound,

particularly but not exclusively on the central and eastern sides

of the heart of England there.

And the temperatures, when you add in the strength

of that wind, we're talking about 50-60 miles an hour gusts,

it's down to -7 or -8 and there are Amber warnings

already for snow and ice from the Met Office.

They run from about tea-time on Saturday through

the course of the night and on into the first part of Sunday.

That high pressure very much the dominant feature, though.

Could well be that period of snowfall there

across southern parts for a time on Sunday.

As that eases away towards the west, things begin to quieten down.

Fewer showers.

The latter part of Sunday, what you've got to cope with

is pretty much what has happened through Saturday and Saturday night.

The day, though, for the absence of the showers,

no warmer by any means at all.

Any signs of a recovery in those temperatures? Yes.

High pressure begins to drift away from Scandinavia

and cuts off the coal supply of air from the northern parts,

from Siberia, and we're beginning to pick up a maritime track.

Still quite a breeze across the south-eastern quarter

and from that we will still see some wintry showers,

he North York Moors, perhaps, the Wolds of Lincolnshire.

Elsewhere, a dry start to the week.

But no real warmth in sight.

Still we look, as we move into Tuesday, Wednesday,

this area of high pressure still the dominant feature,

still a lot of dry weather.

Temperatures slowly beginning to recover from that

cold snap that all of us will endure during the course of the weekend.

Quite a bit of sunshine around, quite a bit of dry weather

and here, by Tuesday,

not quite double figures but not nought,

one, two, or three degrees.

As we move through towards the middle of the week,

the high-pressure begins its journey slowly away down towards

the south-western approaches.

Tending to open up the door for at Atlantic weather systems,

gradually they work their way through to northern

and western parts of Scotland, maybe flirting with Northern Ireland, too.

At least with that mild Atlantic flow,

beginning to dominate across the British Isles, those temperatures

in one or two spots beginning to get back towards double figures.

That is the trend that we see as we move into the second half

of the forthcoming week. It comes at a price.

There is no doubt about it, as we look towards the Atlantic,

we will introduce low-pressure systems

for the second half of the week.

Something akin to that, perhaps,

with wet and windy spells of weather.

So, slowly, things will turn less cold

but they will turn more unsettled and very wet and windy at times.

Goodnight.