18/03/2018 Weather for the Week Ahead

Hello there. So, the Beast from the East has arrived.

As we know, it's just a minibeast. This one's not going to be as nasty.

We have seen a significant drop in temperature

and we have seen some snow already.

These are just two of the many Weather Watcher pictures

we've been sent in the past 24 hours.

Keep sending them in on Sunday,

because there will be more wintry scenes across the UK.

We've still got warnings out from the Met Office - some yellow ones,

the more significant amber ones are still in place for snow

and ice across parts of England and Wales as we head into Sunday.

Any milder air that we had over the past few days has been

pushed all the way down into Africa instead.

Our air originates from Siberia, hence that cold easterly wind

bringing some more snow overnight and into Sunday, as well.

The main heavier snowfall towards the south-west of England and Wales

tending to creep away through the day. Some heavy falls over hills.

Behind it, dry, cloudy conditions for the south-east.

More snow showers coming in off the North Sea, mind you,

mainly for the Humber northwards,

and temperatures, well, struggling to make one or two degrees.

And add on the strength of that easterly wind,

it'll feel like minus five or minus six.

Cold winds feeding in from the east around an area of high pressure,

but the position of the high pressure is going to change

over the coming few days - the centre of the high towards Scotland,

so here the winds will be lighter.

Very frosty, still icy conditions on Monday. Stronger winds for England

and Wales, but not as strong, so it won't feel as cold.

The air's a bit drier, so most places will be dry.

And there'll be some sunshine around, as well.

Indeed, not much falling from the sky, really, on Monday at all.

We're losing the snow, because high pressure is building in

and it's just calming things down.

There's the high pressure, more across the UK on Tuesday.

Around the edge of it we get a northerly wind.

It's cold, but it's not as cold as an easterly wind.

It'll be mainly affecting eastern England, that wind,

where there'll be more cloud. You might get one or two showers,

but on the whole again it's going to be dry,

sunshine, temperatures creeping up to seven or eight degrees.

Still cold, but it's better. It's a trend.

The really mild air is more towards the Atlantic, and to get that we

need to change the wind direction, squash away the high pressure,

around the top of it bring in the south-westerly winds,

and that's what we start to do on Wednesday.

It comes, of course, with a lot more cloud,

and we get some outbreaks of rain towards the north-west of the UK,

nothing very much.

Towards the south-east it's probably going to be dry.

Ten degrees in Belfast, a significant change here.

A little rain on that weather front there pushes away, and then we get

a more significant weather system from the Atlantic again on Thursday.

That's going to bring thickening cloud, outbreaks of rain.

It could be a bit heavier, this rain, in the north-west.

Over the hills of Western Scotland, some wet weather here,

but again not much reaching the eastern side of England.

It's probably going to be dry and bright. A little bit of sunshine.

We're not going to be seeing so much frost, because the air's

a bit milder, and temperatures widely ten or 11 degrees.

So, let's head into the outlook, and things will change again,

because a lot of that milder air gets pushed away.

Instead, you can see the swirl on the wind pattern in the colder air.

With the jet stream to the south of the UK,

we've got an area of low pressure,

and that means it's going to be very unsettled as we head into next

weekend. Things slowly improving beyond then.

But what we'll find is next weekend it's going to be quite windy.

There may well be some gales around, we'll have some rain or showers,

not much snow around at all.

And then, as the low clears away, we get a north-westerly

and it will turn a little bit cooler.