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It will turn increasingly windy before Christmas but will those winds bring rain or snow for the big day? Bringing you this deep dive is Met Office meteorologist Aidan McGivern.
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We are the Met Office, the UK’s national weather service, and every day of the week we bring you a morning weather forecast and an afternoon weather forecast so that wherever you are in the UK we have you covered.
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It will turn increasingly windy before Christmas but will those winds bring rain or snow for the big day? Bringing you this deep dive is Met Office meteorologist Aidan McGivern.
You may also enjoy:
– 10 Day trend forecast https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGVVqeJodR_ZDSHKqsgszMnk9d5IEF5UH
– Podcasts exploring weather and climate https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGVVqeJodR_brL5mcfsqI4cu42ueHttv0
– Daily weather forecasts https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGVVqeJodR_Zew9xGAqYVtGjYHau-E2yL
Subscribe to make sure you never miss the latest UK weather forecast or important weather warning - https://www.youtube.com/c/metoffice?sub_confirmation=1
We are the Met Office, the UK’s national weather service, and every day of the week we bring you a morning weather forecast and an afternoon weather forecast so that wherever you are in the UK we have you covered.
Forecast and any weather warnings are accurate at time of recording. To ensure you have the most up to date weather information, check the hourly forecast and live warnings on the Met Office website or app.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Will it be a white Christmas or will it be a wet and windy Christmas and why do we even
00:05 care in the UK about white Christmases?
00:09 And what's the weather doing in the lead up to Christmas?
00:12 I'll be answering all those questions plus many more in this week's Met Office Deep
00:16 Dive.
00:17 We do these every Tuesday.
00:18 You can find them on the Met Office YouTube channel.
00:21 They're exclusive to our YouTube channel so make sure if you like these in-depth forecasts
00:25 you hit subscribe so you never miss an update.
00:28 And if you haven't got a Christmas present for a friend yet, recommend the Deep Dive.
00:31 It's free and they'll enjoy the gift of in-depth forecasts for the foreseeable future.
00:37 Now we're starting with this very dramatic scene across Iceland at the moment.
00:41 Of course it's made the news.
00:43 You might have heard about it.
00:44 It is the long-awaited volcanic eruption near the town of Grindervik.
00:49 Luckily the residents were evacuated from Grindervik some weeks ago and hopefully there'll
00:56 be no casualties or indeed no property damage from this.
00:59 But it's quite a spectacular eruption.
01:02 Four kilometres I believe the eruptive fissure is and it's at the moment staying to the north
01:11 at the time of recording at least of that town of Grindervik.
01:14 But you might be wondering, and this is where I can shed some light as a meteorologist rather
01:19 than a geologist of course, whether this is going to impact the UK at all because there
01:25 was that famous volcanic eruption back in 2010 that did disrupt flights across the UK.
01:30 But at the moment it poses no risk to flights because it's not necessarily a big ash kind
01:39 of volcano.
01:40 It's not going to be erupting in the same nature as the volcano back in 2010.
01:46 And that's good news because our winds are currently coming from Iceland.
01:51 Those winds are changing.
01:52 Let's put the wind arrows on here.
01:55 This is the time of recording and if we zoom in a little bit just to give you some context
02:00 so you can see where that town of Grindervik is.
02:03 It's on this peninsula here in Iceland and certainly there's a risk there to the local
02:10 population and perhaps a risk during coming days and weeks to very local flights.
02:16 But despite the winds coming from Iceland we're not seeing the same kind of eruption
02:21 that we saw back in 2010 where we had a volcano that erupted underneath a sheet of ice and
02:28 as a result we saw huge amounts of ash and ice and glass erupt into the atmosphere disrupting
02:34 flights.
02:35 So, our winds are coming from the northwest.
02:38 This change in wind has been brought about by the passage of a cold front.
02:41 There's the cold front.
02:42 It brought a wet start to the south during Tuesday but that's now clearing to brighter
02:48 skies.
02:49 And it's a big change actually that's happening to our weather over the next few days.
02:54 We've seen westerlies over the weekend.
02:56 We saw some very wet weather to west and northwest.
02:59 Scotland, that rain then headed south.
03:01 That's the rain band that is now clearing the south and southeast of England at the
03:05 time of recording.
03:07 But as that moves away, well high pressure which has been sitting to the south of the
03:12 UK is also moving away.
03:14 But what we're seeing instead is this north shifted storm track.
03:18 The jet stream to the north of the UK and a bit of a contrast to what we saw during
03:23 recent weeks and months with the south shifted storm track and low pressure bringing some
03:29 very unsettled weather to the south of the UK.
03:31 What we're seeing over the next few days and beyond in fact, as I'll go into in a minute,
03:38 is a north shifted jet stream.
03:39 These lows directed to the north of Scotland and often ending up into Scandinavia.
03:46 So what does that mean?
03:47 Well, we'll often see these west to northwestly winds over the next few days.
03:52 That brings about a change in temperature.
03:54 Now if I just take the jet stream off, maybe I'll rewind the clock a touch.
04:00 In fact, let's go back to the time of recording.
04:03 And as that cold front moves through, then you can see the blue hues returning across
04:09 the UK.
04:10 So into Tuesday night, into the start of Wednesday, some cold air and in fact some wintry showers
04:16 over the north of the UK, over higher parts.
04:20 But what we will see during the rest of the week and into the weekend is this oscillation
04:25 in the temperature and the wind direction.
04:28 Sometimes the wind will be more of a west-southwest direction and it will bring some milder air,
04:33 for example, during Wednesday.
04:36 And sometimes it will bring northwesterly winds, for example, into Thursday and cold
04:41 rare south again.
04:43 And into Friday as well, that cold rare will produce some wintry showers, mainly over northern
04:48 hills.
04:49 But by the weekend, we're back to more of a west-southwest or westerly influence and
04:55 milder air.
04:56 So this oscillation in temperatures over the next few days as the winds oscillate between
05:01 west and northwest, bringing milder and colder conditions at times.
05:06 Now what that means is that it will often be marginal in terms of snow falling over
05:11 northern parts of the UK.
05:13 Not really going to see any snow further south in the next few days.
05:17 But it's quite interesting in these situations to look at what we call the wet bulb freezing
05:23 level.
05:25 Now this shows the height of the zero degree isotherm above sea level.
05:31 And you've got the place names on the map there.
05:32 There's Scotland, there's England and Wales and there's Northern Ireland.
05:36 And as meteorologists, we always look at the height of the zero degree above sea level if
05:41 we want to know what height the snow will fall to.
05:44 And it's not necessarily going to fall to that height of zero degrees.
05:47 It often goes a little lower.
05:49 So you can subtract two, three hundred metres from this height because if the freezing level
05:55 is two hundred metres above your location, then the snow will keep falling.
06:00 And if the precipitation is particularly heavy, it brings cold rare down with it.
06:04 And so when you've got heavier precipitation, it might be three or four hundred metres.
06:08 But a typical rule, let's go with two hundred metres as the rule of thumb for snow to be
06:16 falling.
06:17 And what you can see here is that much of England, Wales, Ireland at the start of Tuesday
06:23 afternoon are in the greens.
06:24 But we've got the blues there across Scotland.
06:27 That means that the freezing level there is about four, six hundred metres.
06:30 So yeah, subtract two hundred metres as I mentioned and you've got two, four, six hundred
06:35 metres for the snow falling.
06:38 Now skipping forward to the start of Wednesday and actually this is where it gets quite interesting.
06:44 And you can see this big gradient for Wednesday morning.
06:48 The greens out to the west as the wind switched to more of a west, south-westerly or westerly
06:53 direction.
06:54 But the blues there across Scotland and the far north of Scotland we're into the greys
06:58 which is two hundred or zero degrees for that zero degree height above sea level.
07:04 So that would indicate that we've got some falling snow right down to lower levels for
07:08 Shetland and for Orkney.
07:10 But certainly over some of the hills for Scotland at first Wednesday and before the greens take
07:15 over then and really lift that snow level by midday really, by lunchtime that snow level
07:23 is going right up.
07:24 So at first on Wednesday some snow over the hills of Scotland and perhaps to lower levels
07:27 for Shetland and Orkney before rising.
07:30 Now skipping forward again and playing it through.
07:34 Wednesday's eventually going to be a mild day but by the start of Thursday those north-westerlies
07:39 arrive and you can see the blues spreading south once again.
07:43 And those blues mixed in with a few greys therefore the far north of Scotland would
07:48 indicate that by Thursday once showers return, turning increasingly cold through the day
07:54 on Thursday, those showers are going to be turning increasingly wintry.
07:58 Obviously again over the hills of Scotland, perhaps over the tops of the Pennines, perhaps
08:02 to lower levels for the far north of Scotland because of the colours there indicating that
08:06 freezing level coming down.
08:07 But further south, Northern Ireland, much of the rest of England and Wales, well it's
08:11 greens and that's a freezing level well up, so above a thousand metres or so.
08:17 So that just indicates that the temperatures are varying over the next few days.
08:21 There'll be some snow at times over the higher parts of Scotland, perhaps down to lower levels
08:24 for the far north of Scotland and perhaps at times over the tops of the Pennines but
08:29 nothing out of the ordinary for the UK.
08:32 We'll also see a bit of a temperature oscillation.
08:36 I'll show you the minimum temperatures, they vary a bit more.
08:39 This was the start of Tuesday, low single figures in places, touch of frost here and
08:43 there, touch of grass frost.
08:45 Into Wednesday morning and just ahead of that system that's bringing milder conditions in,
08:51 coldest towards the east.
08:53 Thursday morning it's a mild start to the day because of course we've seen that mild
08:57 rare spread in but through Thursday it turns colder as the northwesterly winds arrive and
09:03 by Friday colder conditions in the north, relatively mild further south.
09:07 So a frost for Scotland, perhaps out with the wind but it will be windy.
09:11 And then into the start of the weekend, again a touch of frost for Northern Scotland, not
09:15 so frosty further south and I'll talk a bit more about the weekend in a moment but it
09:20 is expected to again oscillate with those temperatures.
09:24 Now what is most of note with the northwesterlies that I talked about coming in for Thursday
09:31 is just how strong they'll be.
09:33 So let's take a look at the bigger picture.
09:36 In fact the jet stream is quite important with this.
09:39 So zooming out, this jet streak we call it, this core of very strong winds pushing across
09:49 parts of Greenland and Iceland during Wednesday will deepen this area of low pressure pushing
09:54 into Scandinavia really significantly.
09:57 It will continue to deepen during much of Thursday as it pushes into Scandinavia.
10:01 The jet stream is in excess of 230 miles an hour so a very powerful jet stream.
10:06 This area of low pressure is sitting just on the correct side of the jet stream to allow
10:11 the jet stream to really spin it up as it goes into Scandinavia and by the time it gets
10:15 into say Sweden by the end of Thursday that low pressure is a central value of about 961
10:24 hectopascals.
10:25 Not only have we got that very low low, we've got a very high high sitting in the Atlantic
10:29 an unusually high area of low pressure for this part of the world, for the Atlantic.
10:34 And this on Thursday is around 1046 hectopascals.
10:39 So a low low, a high high in between a tight pressure gradient and that of course means
10:45 particularly strong winds.
10:47 And those strong winds are going to lead to, let's take a look at the wind gust graphic
10:54 here.
10:55 Those strong winds are going to lead to fairly widespread gales across northern parts of
10:58 the UK.
10:59 Here is the strongest plume of winds coming in for the start of Thursday.
11:03 The key is over here.
11:05 Everything that's above 50 miles an hour is coloured in and then the darker shades indicate
11:09 even stronger wind gusts.
11:11 And so playing it forward to around about dawn on Thursday, so if you're getting up
11:18 on Thursday morning it's going to be a very lively start to the day.
11:21 These strong northwesterly winds bringing gales and the risk over the hills of Wales,
11:27 the hills of England and Northern Ireland of 50 mile an hour wind gusts or more.
11:32 And for northern Scotland the risk of 60, 70, even 80 mile an hour wind gusts.
11:38 You can see how some of these darker shades correspond to the key there.
11:42 Now let's try and zoom around the map and put a bit more detail on it because it's quite
11:48 interesting how the winds will vary from place to place.
11:51 They're going to be strongest as I say across some northern parts of the UK.
11:55 So the wind gust graph on the right here just shows just around coastal parts of Orkney
12:00 for example, a peak there of 77 miles an hour.
12:04 Likewise for Shetland 79 coming up and you can see by the time here that's about mid
12:09 morning on Thursday those winds are peaking across the northern isles before steadily
12:14 declining into Friday.
12:15 I might just move it further south then, the far north of the mainland of Scotland, again
12:20 into the 70s, 60, 70 miles an hour.
12:25 And it's pretty blustery all across Scotland but as you come further south it's more like
12:30 60s in terms of miles an hour.
12:32 So Glasgow 55 there's the peak, again peaking Thursday morning, 60 odd for Edinburgh.
12:39 But this is an interesting part, parts of the Pennines see this peak here because the
12:44 wind, well the higher ground will be pushing up into a stronger wind part of the atmosphere
12:50 and so just sampling some of that, we're into the 60s, there is a risk of 70 mile per hour
12:56 wind gusts over the Pennines, the Peak District for example.
12:59 So yeah, very, very blustery indeed.
13:02 In fact this graphic shows the risk, or at least the probability of, on this side, 60
13:10 knots, so 65, 70 mile per hour wind gusts and as you can see clearly marked out, northern
13:16 Scotland, parts of upland Scotland and then this line down the Pennines highlighting that
13:23 risk area.
13:24 I'm just about to make it out there.
13:26 And then on the left it's the probability of more than 70 knots or 75, 80 miles an hour
13:33 and again places that are picked out, northern Scotland, Orkney, Shetland, north of the mainland
13:38 and some upland parts of Scotland as well as northern England.
13:41 So all in all, this just tells us that all across northern parts of the UK it's going
13:48 to be a very blustery day on Thursday, we've issued a yellow warning for that.
13:53 Probably 50 mile per hour wind gusts plus but for northern hills and for parts of northern
13:58 Scotland there's that risk of 70 to 80 mile per hour wind gusts.
14:02 So that could disrupt transport, it could bring some power disruption and certainly
14:08 it could close some bridges and ferry crossings and so on.
14:11 So we'll get updated on that over the next couple of days as we get closer to the event.
14:15 But a very windy day on Thursday.
14:18 It will also result in large waves.
14:22 This shows the significant wave height.
14:24 If we just skip ahead to Wednesday night and you can see this large area of high waves
14:30 coming in across northern and western Scotland.
14:33 But as that low moves into Scandinavia during Thursday afternoon into the evening, it's
14:38 going to push all this water down the North Sea and we'll see these very big waves come
14:43 down the east coast of the UK, storm surge and affect the near continent as well.
14:50 So yeah, that's another hazard as well as the strong winds we're likely to see overtopping
14:55 of coastal waters and some very large waves.
14:58 So hazardous conditions around the beaches.
14:59 Certainly not a good day to hang out on any of those beaches or cliffs near the sea.
15:06 Now that's the wind, I've covered the storm surge.
15:11 Looking at my to-do list here.
15:15 And then there's a change taking place into the weekend.
15:18 There is once again, as I mentioned, an oscillation with the wind speed.
15:24 Only a slight oscillation.
15:26 The winds this weekend look likely to switch from the north-westerlies that we see on Thursday,
15:32 bringing like I mentioned some wintry showers into northern parts of the UK, snow mostly
15:36 over hills, to, that's Thursday, to more of a flatter direction.
15:46 Now more of a westerly direction.
15:49 Here's the jet stream, that's that powerful streak of the jet stream moving into the continent.
15:54 There's another low emerging out of North America at this stage on Friday.
15:59 And that low is likely to change the wind direction across the UK to more of a westerly.
16:06 But there still remains a lot of uncertainty about the exact development of this low coming
16:13 out of North America and the degree to which it will push our winds to more of a westerly
16:17 or keep more of a north-westerly.
16:19 Only subtle changes in the development of this low will make marked changes in terms
16:23 of the wind direction for the UK and the big consequence of that of course will be the
16:27 temperature.
16:28 So, I'll just show you the temperature here.
16:30 This is the latest model run and what it suggests at the moment is that after that colder interlude
16:37 on Thursday, the north-westerlies will see more of a westerly influence later Friday
16:42 and into the weekend.
16:44 And that milder air with some cloud, with some rain for example, put on the rain there
16:48 just to indicate it, the rain will be around some of these fronts but most of the rain
16:52 will be affecting northern and western parts.
16:55 Well that, according to the latest model run, is going to stick around throughout much of
17:00 the weekend.
17:01 But there's a lot of uncertainty about this because different computer model runs are
17:05 suggesting different things.
17:07 Now this is showing the temperature plume at 5,000 feet but it's a good indicator of
17:13 how the temperatures will be at the surface for Aberdeen.
17:17 And what it shows, I appreciate you might not be able to see, but it shows from Tuesday
17:22 the 19th out to Friday the 29th and it shows the 52 different computer model runs that
17:29 the European model runs and it's plotted them all on the two graphs here.
17:33 Now obviously as you get further out in time, further ahead with the forecast, those runs
17:39 diverge so you get a bigger spread.
17:42 But what's fairly clear is looking at this period here, this on top is the model runs
17:50 from 24 hours ago and this on the bottom, again for Aberdeen, is showing the model runs
17:56 from the latest output.
17:59 And this is this weekend, 23rd to the 24th of December, so that's this period here.
18:06 And 24 hours ago the model runs were generally agreeing that it would be colder through the
18:12 weekend.
18:13 We'd see these northwesterly winds, colder but brighter with some showers.
18:18 The more recent output has produced this big bump in the temperature, so suggesting the
18:23 milder air will hang on throughout the weekend.
18:26 So that's the period we're looking at here.
18:28 These two days, the 23rd and the 24th, both showing the forecast for Aberdeen but the
18:33 top image is from 24 hours ago, the bottom image is the most recent output.
18:39 So something's changed in the output in 24 hours.
18:43 24 hours ago there was this idea that - let's get rid of that, that's an alright one - there
18:49 was this idea that this cold front here that's making an appearance late Saturday would sweep
18:54 across the UK quickly and we'd see this cold rear spread south for the weekend before Christmas
19:00 and indeed Christmas Day.
19:01 The latest output is suggesting that cold front's held up because the low develops more
19:07 deeply, slows down, the whole progression of events slows down and we get the milder
19:13 westerly for longer through the weekend with some cloud and some rain, most of the rain
19:17 towards the northwest.
19:20 What does that mean for Christmas Day?
19:21 Well it actually doesn't make too much of a difference in terms of what we were thinking
19:25 for Christmas Day because either way, even though that cold front is slower to clear
19:30 through this weekend, it's clearing nevertheless for Christmas Day.
19:35 So let me show you the most likely weather pattern for Christmas Day.
19:41 That cold front does clear, perhaps some early rain in the south on Christmas Day itself
19:45 but once that rain clears we've got low pressure to the north and we've got this west-northwesterly
19:52 airflow - similar conditions to the next couple of days really, west-northwesterly airflow.
19:59 Showers perhaps longer spells of rain, mostly towards the north and the west of the UK.
20:04 Cold enough for some of those showers to be falling as sleet and snow but mostly that
20:08 will be over hills and temperatures not far from average for the time of year.
20:14 So to summarise that, this is our latest thoughts for Christmas Day's weather.
20:20 Many places expected to be dry, fine and bright once any early rain clears from the south
20:27 if we do indeed see that weather front clearing south on Christmas Day morning.
20:31 So plenty of bright weather but with a west-northwesterly airflow there will be quite a number of showers
20:36 moving in, especially for western Scotland, Northern Ireland, North West England and the
20:39 coloured areas on the map just show what flavour these showers will be.
20:43 So the darker grey here - rain, sleet and hill snow.
20:47 Pennines - hill snow, Southern Uplands - hill snow for example.
20:51 The darker grey here across parts of central and northern Scotland just suggests that we'll
20:55 see snow down to lower levels perhaps on Christmas Day.
21:00 So what does that mean in terms of whether it will be a white Christmas or not?
21:05 It does depend on your definition of course.
21:08 Now why do we care about white Christmas?
21:11 I did ask that question at the beginning.
21:13 Of course it's all about Dickens.
21:15 He wrote the Christmas Carol book in 1843 and he just experienced quite a few white
21:23 Christmases.
21:24 One really notable one was in 1836 and that was famous because that Christmas saw the
21:32 most deadly avalanche on record in the UK.
21:35 And this is a good Christmas pub quiz question - where in the UK saw the deadliest avalanche
21:42 on record?
21:43 It was actually in Sussex, Southern England, a town called Lewes.
21:47 And in that Christmas of 1836 a huge amount of snow piled up on the white hills or the
21:57 chalk cliffs above that town and eventually an avalanche occurred and was quite devastating.
22:05 There is to this day a pub called the Snow Drop Inn.
22:09 Anyway, I digress.
22:11 So Dickens saw a lot of white Christmases but these days the definition of white Christmas
22:16 isn't that kind of Dickensian Christmas card scene.
22:19 The Met Office official definition of a white Christmas is just to have one flake of snow
22:23 falling somewhere in the UK and believe it or not that happens at around 70% of Christmas
22:30 days.
22:31 It means that for most people we don't see lying snow on Christmas Day and we're not
22:35 expecting it this Christmas unless you're say on the Cairngorms or the North West Highlands
22:41 for example.
22:43 Widespread lying snow much more uncommon.
22:44 Four out of every 50, 51 Christmases in recent times have seen widespread lying snow.
22:51 The last one of course was in 2010.
22:53 Talking of Christmas, this is my last day at work before Christmas.
22:59 I will be back on the Wednesday after Christmas with the 10-day trend but this is just my
23:03 opportunity.
23:04 I know a lot of people asked for pictures of Murphy last time I showed my dog on the
23:10 deep dive so I'll just treat you to this Christmas themed picture of Murphy and wish you all
23:16 a Merry Christmas.
23:17 Thank you for supporting us with the YouTube channel during recent weeks, months and years.
23:22 It is much appreciated.
23:23 Don't forget to hit subscribe and tell your friends all about it as well.
23:27 Merry Christmas.
23:28 [BLANK_AUDIO]