This is the Met Office UK Weather forecast for the next 10 days 31/01/2024.
The final month of meteorological winter starts off blustery and mild but, after a very uncertain transition period, there are some signals for a big change in the weather patterns by the second half of the month. Bringing you this weekend’s weather forecast is Aidan McGivern.
You may also enjoy:
– Deep dive in-depth forecasts https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGVVqeJodR_ZGnhyYdlEpdYrjZ-Pmj2rt
– 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
The final month of meteorological winter starts off blustery and mild but, after a very uncertain transition period, there are some signals for a big change in the weather patterns by the second half of the month. Bringing you this weekend’s weather forecast is Aidan McGivern.
You may also enjoy:
– Deep dive in-depth forecasts https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGVVqeJodR_ZGnhyYdlEpdYrjZ-Pmj2rt
– 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
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 Hello, and welcome to the Met Office 10-day trend. This has been recorded on the final
00:04 day of January, so I thought it would be interesting not just to cover the next 10 days, but to
00:08 look at some of the signals that are emerging for how weather patterns may evolve throughout
00:13 February. More on that in a moment, but it's certainly been an interesting winter so far.
00:17 We've had some stormy spells and we've also had some cold spells. And at the moment, a
00:22 very powerful jet stream is running across the Atlantic and this has explosively deepened
00:27 an area of low pressure which, through Wednesday night, will run into Norway. Now, Norway is
00:33 used to windy weather and deep lows, but this is something else. Red warnings in force for
00:38 Norway and they've named it Storm Ingen. Now, the UK has been spared the worst of this,
00:44 although yellow warnings were in force for the strong winds for northern parts of the
00:48 country earlier on. But the storm track has shifted north compared with how it was throughout
00:55 much of autumn and the first half of winter. And we'll continue to see that north shifted
00:59 storm track through the coming days. Now, that means a couple of things. First of all,
01:04 we've got higher pressure to the south, so generally drier towards the south, wetter
01:07 towards the north. Secondly, this tight pressure gradient remains. Although the lows are moving
01:12 towards Iceland and Norway and so on, we've still got tightly packed isobars because of
01:16 this pressure gradient across the country. So, still blustery. And we've still got some
01:23 very mild air being moved into the UK from the Atlantic and that's certainly the case
01:29 on Friday, an exceptionally mild day and even more so overnight. We start the day with those
01:35 gusty winds, nothing compared to the storms that we saw last week, but still the potential
01:41 50 mph wind gusts in places, 55 perhaps in one or two spots. And the winds will be bouncing
01:47 over the hills, the Pennines and the Scottish mountains. Could be troublesome crosswind,
01:52 for example, for the A1 and the M1 and so on. So, tricky driving conditions perhaps
01:56 first thing Friday because of that blustery weather. A lot of places, because of that
02:01 westerly or southwesterly influence, will be covered in clouds. So, a grey start to
02:05 the day, best of any brightness towards the east and southeast, but it will be a very
02:09 mild start to the day. And as the day unfolds, we're going to see plenty of damp weather,
02:13 especially over western hills where there'll be a covering of hill fog and more especially
02:18 the north-west of Scotland where the rain will be persistent. Although not particularly
02:21 heavy, it's going to be mostly light to moderate rain and drizzle through the day. Always drier
02:27 towards the southeast and very mild across the country, particularly where the wind warms
02:31 up on its passage over higher ground. So, 14 Celsius there for Aberdeen, 13 in the south
02:36 and so on. Most places in the double figures on Friday afternoon, but it will be grey,
02:41 it will be breezy and damp. Fast forward to Saturday morning and it's a mild start for
02:46 many with double figures, perhaps even 11 or 12 Celsius first thing in some spots. But
02:51 it is a cloudy and damp start for parts of England and Wales, particularly towards the
02:55 west. Now, brighter skies will emerge across Scotland with some showers and these showers
03:00 will be falling as snow over the mountains. It will be a bit colder in the north and northeast
03:04 of Scotland as well, because we've seen the front that is marking the boundary between
03:10 milder to the south and colder air further north, that's shifting south. So, some persistent
03:15 rain along that frontal boundary emerging into the northern part of England there, north
03:20 Wales for example, through Saturday afternoon. But that front really just wriggling across
03:25 central parts of the UK. Before on Sunday, it shifts north again and as you can see,
03:30 having seen some colder air into the north, the mild air returns and Sunday looks very
03:35 similar to Friday. This west to south-westerly influence, high pressure to the south, lower
03:39 pressure to the north and it's grey, it's damp in places, but the more persistent rain
03:44 will be across Northern Ireland, western Scotland first thing, into northern parts of England,
03:49 parts of Wales as well, seeing some wet weather. But increasingly, it is wetter across western
03:54 Scotland and it's drier towards the south as the afternoon gets going. A lot of cloud,
04:01 again a blustery breeze, but it is mild, temperatures of 12, 13, perhaps 14 Celsius, apart from
04:07 the northeast of Scotland where it will be much colder, 5 to 8 Celsius, although not
04:12 far from average here. So, a weekend of grey skies, gusty winds, but also relatively high
04:20 temperatures for the time of year. Then into Sunday night, that front just wriggles across
04:26 parts of northern UK, bringing further spells of rain before starting to slide south. However,
04:33 for Monday midday, well some computer models have it across central parts of the UK, but
04:38 I wouldn't take the position from this graphic to literally because there's a lot of uncertainty
04:44 in terms of its position. Some computer models have it further north, some computer models
04:49 have it further south. And that uncertainty in the position of that boundary between very
04:54 mild grey, damp weather to the south and much colder but brighter weather to the north,
05:00 well that boundary uncertainty really continues throughout next week. In fact, next week becomes
05:07 very uncertain as far as the forecast is concerned, more than usual. This graphic tries to illustrate
05:13 the confidence or the amount of uncertainty, certainty we have in the forecast and it basically
05:18 looks at the variation in computer models when you run the computer models dozens of
05:22 times when they're all saying the same thing. You can say you're confident in the weather
05:26 forecast and that's where these numbers come in. So, 1 would mean a lot of confidence in
05:32 the computer models, 0 would be virtually no confidence. And on average, over time,
05:37 the confidence obviously decreases because you're getting further ahead and the computer
05:41 model output tends to diverge. That's the average line in the middle, the dotted line,
05:45 but this is the current forecast, this is that line. And so, much higher confidence
05:50 than usual for the weekend, computer models are all saying the same thing basically, that
05:54 westerly breeze from the Atlantic bringing cloud and some outbreaks of rain. But from
06:00 Monday onwards, the confidence level drops off a cliff and by Wednesday, Thursday, it
06:05 really is about as least confident as you can get. And that means that all the computer
06:11 models are saying all sorts of different things. And that is illustrated by this. So, this
06:17 shows the kinds of weather patterns we can expect on each day going out to the next two
06:21 weeks. They're colour coded, but they basically show different themes for the UK's weather.
06:26 And westerlies are illustrated by the dark blue here, high confidence, they're all saying
06:31 westerlies up until the end of the weekend. Then, into next week, you get all sorts of
06:36 different colours indicating that all sorts of different weather patterns could occur.
06:40 So, does that mean we don't have a clue? Well, no, not really. There are some common themes
06:45 emerging and this is one type of theme that's starting to emerge for the second half of
06:52 next week. This looks at Saturday and it shows low pressure sitting further south across
06:57 the UK than how we start the week. And that would allow colder air, but it would remain
07:02 unsettled. And with colder air in place, you'd see more wintry hazards across northern parts
07:07 of the UK. Some hill snow, perhaps some snow at lower levels and some icy patches and so
07:11 on, if this were to occur. This is slightly more likely as a solution for the end of next
07:18 week. But this is also possible. See, there's not much difference. We've still got low pressure,
07:24 it's just in a slightly different place. It allows more of a south-westerly influence,
07:27 so milder air continuing across the UK and generally wet and breezy conditions. So, what
07:33 we can say through next week is that low pressure is the common theme. It's just about the track
07:38 of that low. And what we're seeing through next week is this uncertain transition period
07:45 because the computer models kind of know where they want to end up in the middle of February.
07:50 It's how they get there. And through next week, one of the themes that is starting to
07:56 emerge is that the jet stream is starting to sink south, that boundary between mild
08:00 and cold is starting to sink south. And so, there are more and more models that suggest
08:05 colder air appearing later next week, but not all of them are suggesting that. Here's
08:10 a temperature trend for southern parts of the UK, just to indicate that. No, northern
08:15 parts of the UK are very similar, but there's more uncertainty for southern parts of the
08:18 UK, so it's more interesting to look at this one. And what it's basically suggesting is
08:22 very mild conditions, temperatures in the double figures, both by day and by night through
08:25 the weekend, not much uncertainty. The temperature range is quite small from the different computer
08:30 models. Then, later half of next week, these boxes get very large. That means that basically
08:38 there is a large number of computer models that keep things mild, but also an increasing
08:43 number that start to turn things much colder. So, more and more uncertainty next week about
08:49 the storm track, basically, where those lows are going to be moving. And only small differences,
08:56 100 to 500 miles or so of the storm track would, of course, make a big difference in
09:01 terms of how cold or how mild it is. But, here's a look at the confidence graph again,
09:06 but this time out to 45 days. There's the uncertainty for next week, but then mid-February,
09:12 this big peak in confidence. And actually, what this would just suggest is that there's
09:19 more confidence in the forecast for the middle of February compared with next week. So, the
09:24 computer models are transitioning next week to something, and they're more confident about
09:30 what that something is than the transition period. And what are they transitioning to?
09:35 Well, these solid reds that quite confidently appear around the 16th, 17th, 18th of February,
09:42 what does that look like? This kind of thing, higher pressure close to the UK, what we call
09:48 a block setup because it's blocking low pressure coming in from the Atlantic. Now, higher pressure
09:53 close to the UK would lead to colder weather because you get more overnight frosts and
09:56 so on, but you'd also get drier conditions. This is one possibility. Another possibility
10:01 is that higher pressure is further west for the middle of February, and you get more of
10:06 a northerly influence, so even colder. But we're talking 18 days away. So, even though
10:13 confidence is higher for the middle of February than you'd typically see 18 days away, it's
10:20 still 18 days away. So, this is by no means certain. It's just the slightly favoured outcome
10:28 at the moment. So, what does all that mean? February starts mild and blustery with a lot
10:34 of cloud cover through the weekend and some outbreaks around particularly in the west
10:38 and the northwest. Then through next week, there's this uncertain transition period as
10:43 the jet stream wobbles. Will it wobble to the south of the UK or stay to the north?
10:47 That's the big question mark. But eventually, there is this emerging signal for it to turn
10:53 drier and colder later, certainly for the second half of February. That's what the signals
10:58 are telling us at the moment, but of course, we'll keep you updated right here at the Met
11:02 office as and when anything changes. And make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel
11:06 so you never miss our updates. Bye-bye.
11:09 [BLANK_AUDIO]