This is an in-depth Met Office UK Weather forecast for the next week and beyond, dated 27/02/2024
In this week’s Deep Dive we take a look at what’s to come this with a rollercoaster in temperatures and the chance of some snow. Also how wet and mild were winter and February, and what can we expect as we go into March and meteorological spring.
Bringing you this deep dive is Met Office meteorologist Alex Burkill.
The unique set of Met Office stamps is available for pre-order now from the Royal Mail website
In this week’s Deep Dive we take a look at what’s to come this with a rollercoaster in temperatures and the chance of some snow. Also how wet and mild were winter and February, and what can we expect as we go into March and meteorological spring.
Bringing you this deep dive is Met Office meteorologist Alex Burkill.
The unique set of Met Office stamps is available for pre-order now from the Royal Mail website
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NewsTranscript
00:00 It's been a long, wet winter, but spring is nearly here, although it may not necessarily
00:05 feel that spring-like when we get to Friday and the first of March, and the start of the
00:11 season.
00:12 Hello, welcome to your latest Met Office Deep Dive.
00:14 I'm Alex Burkill, a meteorologist here at the Met Office.
00:18 I'm coming to you from the headquarters here in Exeter, and if this is your first Deep
00:23 Dive, welcome along.
00:25 I will be talking for the next 20 minutes or so about everything weather, things that
00:29 have happened, and things that are going to happen through the next week or so, and beyond
00:33 as we go into spring.
00:35 As always, if you do like anything that I've been saying today, then do make sure you hit
00:39 the like button, share this with anyone who you think may be interested, any fellow Met
00:43 heads.
00:44 Leave some comments, because I will be replying to the comments as soon as this goes live
00:48 on YouTube, and also a few hours after I will be looking at the comments as well.
00:52 So if you do have any questions, any comments, any feedback, anything you'd like to see more
00:56 of in these Deep Dives, do leave some comments then.
00:59 But let's get to it.
01:00 And like I said, spring is on the way.
01:02 I will be having a look at what we can expect as we go through March and into spring as
01:07 well.
01:08 I'll also be looking at what's happening in the Mediterranean at the moment, because there
01:12 is some unsettled weather there.
01:14 But for now, let's look at the UK weather through the next week or so.
01:18 And the jet stream here, I have it behind me, is actively running.
01:22 It's dipping down towards the south.
01:24 But as we go through the next few days, and it is going to push its way across the UK,
01:29 and it is going to bring some spells of unsettled weather for a time.
01:32 But if I dart back and get rid of the jet and put rainfall on instead, and then you
01:38 can see we have a system coming through.
01:41 So if I go back to today, and there was a front that's weakened as it's pushed its way
01:46 southeastwards across the country today, bringing a bit of rain to many places, perhaps not
01:51 a huge amount to the southeast because it's so weak by the time it reaches here.
01:55 But then another feature comes through as we go through into Wednesday.
01:58 I'll zoom in a little bit if it lets me.
02:01 Last time I touched the zoom button, it went too far.
02:04 Yeah, I thought it would do that.
02:06 So let's do this one.
02:09 Here we go.
02:11 And so a bit of rain initially as we go through Wednesday morning coming in from the west.
02:16 Some of that could be heavy, perhaps a more intense band of rain pushing in from the west
02:20 as we go through Wednesday evening and overnight into Tuesday.
02:24 That then clears away, leaving a showery day as we go through Thursday.
02:30 And then more unsettled weather to come as we go towards the end of the week.
02:34 Friday, we have a low pressure likely to be positioned somewhere across the UK.
02:39 There's a fair amount of uncertainty as to where this low is actually going to be sitting.
02:44 Quite likely there will be somewhere around the Irish Sea, but exactly where it sits as
02:49 we go through Friday plays a huge part in where we're likely to see the strongest winds
02:53 and also the wettest weather.
02:55 And with that, there is the risk of some sleet or snow.
02:57 I'll come on to that in a second.
02:59 But just to go back to our rainfall, and if I show you, this is a graphic that we've been
03:06 working on recently.
03:07 Thank you to Aidan for helping me put this together.
03:10 And what these colours show are the three hourly rainfall totals in the time leading
03:16 up to whatever it says up in the clock in the top right.
03:18 So this is the three hourly rainfall totals leading up to one o'clock on Tuesday afternoon.
03:23 But if I scroll forward, and there's a bit of rain around today, like I said.
03:27 But on Wednesday, we're likely to see some pretty heavy rain coming through.
03:30 Initially, that first burst of rain that I mentioned.
03:33 So as we go through later morning into the afternoon, some heavier rain, particularly
03:37 across the higher ground of Wales.
03:39 But this is only highlighting more than 8 millimetres.
03:42 You see the yellows, the keys on the right hand side for you to use there.
03:46 As we go through later, though, and there's a chance that the second band of rain that
03:50 comes through as we go through Wednesday evening is likely to be a bit more intense.
03:55 Now, I did find earlier, oh, my bad.
03:58 There we go.
03:59 I did find earlier that there were, there we go, that's hinting that there could be
04:04 some oranges.
04:05 Oranges show that we could have more than 16 millimetres.
04:08 And this is in the three hours running up to midnight on Thursday morning.
04:11 So from nine o'clock Wednesday evening until midnight Thursday morning, we could have some
04:16 fairly significant rain, particularly over the higher ground of Western UK, particularly
04:19 over the over Snowdonia, that kind of area.
04:22 And that's coming on the back of some wet weather earlier on in the day and also a lot
04:26 of rain recently through the last month, the last few months.
04:30 And so we could see some localised impacts.
04:31 At the time of recording, we don't have any warnings, but just worth bearing that in mind.
04:37 Then more wet weather to come.
04:39 That will clear its way towards southeast and then an unsettled picture as we go towards
04:42 the end of the week.
04:43 If we look ahead to Friday, and I did mention that there's quite a bit of uncertainty about
04:48 the position of the low pressure on Friday.
04:50 But notice across eastern parts of Scotland, this is currently highlighting again more
04:55 than 16 millimetres in some places.
04:57 So it could be pretty wet there and also wintry too.
05:01 That's because we have some colder air pushing its way in.
05:04 So if I show you that with, let's go with this chart and I'll put my air mass on.
05:11 And remember the air mass, these colours behind me are the, they're illustrating the temperature
05:17 of the air at around 850 hectopascals.
05:20 So that's around 1500 metres up.
05:24 And we had some chilly air over the weekend and to start this week, it wasn't particularly
05:30 cold.
05:31 It was just around average for the time of year, but it was markedly colder than we'd
05:34 seen through much of February.
05:36 However, that initial chilly spell is now giving way to more mild air that's coming
05:42 from the southwest.
05:43 Worth highlighting a couple of things actually, but just whilst we're on this.
05:47 So I mentioned there is a band of rain.
05:49 I will get back to the temperatures before I, whilst I digress.
05:53 But there is this band of rain pushing through, perhaps bringing some cloudy drizzly stuff
05:57 for times we go through this evening.
05:59 Then once that clears through overnight, we actually have a lull, a quieter spell before
06:03 the next wave of wet weather pushes its way in from the west.
06:06 We'd have some pretty murky conditions.
06:08 There could be quite a bit of mist, some fog, maybe even some freezing fog if temperatures
06:12 are low enough, a touch of frost in some places, and also some low clouds, some murkiness.
06:17 So generally some pretty poor conditions if you are heading on the roads early on on Wednesday
06:22 morning.
06:23 So do take care.
06:24 We don't have, like I said, no warnings at the moment at the time of recording, but it's
06:27 not out of the question if we see some fog really developing through the early hours
06:32 of tomorrow, of Wednesday, that we might need to issue something.
06:35 So do stay aware that there could be some difficult conditions.
06:38 But sorry, I've digressed.
06:39 Let's get back to our temperatures.
06:41 We have milder air then coming in as we go through Wednesday.
06:44 So temperatures are going to rise.
06:45 They're going to go from around average for the time of year to quite a few degrees above
06:51 and really going to make their way across.
06:53 But it doesn't last particularly long.
06:55 Colder air then waiting to return as we go through Thursday behind this front.
07:00 So behind the front that brings probably the heavier rain later Wednesday into Thursday.
07:06 That then clears away.
07:07 But behind it we have this colder air.
07:10 And with that colder air then across the UK on Friday and likely to be some unsettled
07:16 weather around, that brings the risk of some snow as well.
07:20 So if I put-- keep pressing the wrong button when it comes to zooming in.
07:25 But if I put-- let's put this on.
07:31 And you can see that there is a fairly reasonable chance of some winteriness.
07:35 I'm not sure too much of this winteriness down towards the southwest of the UK, probably
07:39 over the moors.
07:40 We're probably likely to see some winteriness if this unsettled weather comes in and is
07:45 interacting with the cold air that we're going to have across the country at the end of the
07:49 week.
07:50 I think more likely some significant snow over higher ground across the north is more
07:54 possible.
07:55 There's really no guarantee.
07:56 I think the cold is pretty guaranteed, the drop in temperatures.
08:00 It's the detail as to where we're going to see the more unsettled weather and therefore
08:04 where we're likely to see the greatest snow risk.
08:06 But across northern parts, as always or as more often, we're likely to see a greater
08:11 chance of seeing perhaps some snow.
08:13 And it could be disruptive across some parts, particularly northern higher ground.
08:19 Maybe some elsewhere, but not a huge amount.
08:21 I think it's great most likely across the north.
08:24 And the other new chart that I wanted to show you just to go through our temperatures again
08:27 through this coming week in a slightly different way.
08:31 And that isn't the right one.
08:34 Let's go to our temperatures.
08:36 And this chart will ignore Tuesday because it's basically already happened.
08:41 But if we go dark ahead to Wednesday and this time the colors are comparing the forecast
08:46 maximum temperatures for Wednesday for tomorrow with the average for February.
08:51 That's important for what happens later on this week.
08:54 But you can see many places, lots of places around central UK just near normal for the
08:59 time of year.
09:00 But worth bearing in mind, this color scale has this kind of yellowy, greeny color around
09:06 between minus 3 and plus 3 degrees compared to average.
09:09 So it's still probably a little bit above average.
09:11 But the places where it's going to be more significantly above average, several degrees
09:15 towards the southeast parts of Wales and also western parts of Scotland and Northern Ireland.
09:19 Here some places could be five or more degrees above average for the time before February.
09:25 Worth bearing in mind, I'm saying February, not the time of year because we are getting
09:29 towards the end of February.
09:31 The Wednesday is going to be the 28th.
09:33 If it wasn't a leap year, it'd be the last day of the month.
09:37 And because days are getting longer, there's more sunshine, the sun's getting more strength
09:40 behind.
09:42 Temperatures at the end of February are generally warmer than earlier on in the month or higher,
09:46 sorry.
09:47 So it's no major surprise that temperatures are going to be higher than the average for
09:52 the whole month, but significantly so.
09:53 So they're even higher than average for this stage in the month.
09:58 But this is comparing the average with, sorry, comparing the forecast with the average for
10:04 February as a whole.
10:05 Darting head to Thursday.
10:06 And as I said, there's some colder air starting to push its way in.
10:08 So you can see temperatures around average, a little bit below for many parts of the country,
10:14 but holding on to something a little bit milder towards the southeast.
10:18 Then we go ahead to Friday and wait for it.
10:21 Well it looks quite dramatic.
10:23 Boom.
10:24 That's because two things.
10:25 Yes, we have colder air.
10:27 So I am expecting Friday to be a bit colder than Thursday and quite a bit colder than
10:31 it will have been through Wednesday in particular when we have that milder across much of the
10:36 UK.
10:37 But it's also worth bearing in mind that Friday is the 1st of March.
10:42 And so this chart is now comparing the forecast maximum temperatures with the average temperature
10:48 for March, not February, which is why the colour looks completely different.
10:52 And in the same way that you'd expect temperatures at the end of February to be higher than the
10:57 average for the month, at the start of March you'd expect temperatures to be lower than
11:02 the average for the start of the month.
11:03 So yes, you would expect temperatures to be, you know, a couple of degrees lower at the
11:07 start of February than the average.
11:09 So it's no surprise that we've got some greeny blues on here.
11:12 But it's markedly lower.
11:13 So this is showing that it is going to be colder than average for March.
11:18 But trust me, it is going to be colder than average for the start of March as well.
11:22 So a chillier spell.
11:24 And that's why we're likely to see some frost, some icy patches, some snow as well.
11:30 So I do talk about the fact that we could see some sleet, some snow, most likely over
11:33 higher ground towards the north.
11:35 And that's where it could be a little bit disruptive as well.
11:38 Fab.
11:39 I think that's everything that I wanted to talk about through this week.
11:43 Maybe I'll just have a hint ahead to what we could see as we go through this weekend.
11:50 And if I get rid of the jet stream, put my pressure and my rain back on.
11:54 And it looks like low pressure, the same low pressure that comes through on Friday, still
11:57 dominating the picture into the weekend and staying chilly.
12:01 Temperatures starting to lift a little bit, but staying on the chilly side.
12:05 So more unsettled weather to come, perhaps some sleet or snow, most likely over higher
12:09 ground.
12:10 But towards the southeast of the UK as we go through the weekend, starting to see something
12:15 a little bit drier developing across more northwestern parts, staying with the unsettled
12:19 picture for now.
12:20 But yeah, in the southeast, hints that we may see something a little bit drier and perhaps
12:24 temperatures rising a bit more there as well.
12:26 So that's what we can expect as we go through the weekend.
12:29 Fairly changeable to start, perhaps turning drier as we go through Sunday from the southeast.
12:34 I'll come on to what's going to happen later on as we go through the following week, as
12:40 we go deeper into March and deeper into spring a little bit later.
12:44 But let's go back, because like I said, we are coming to the end of February.
12:48 We're coming to the end of winter.
12:50 So I wanted to take a look at some of the weather that we've had recently, and particularly
12:54 the statistics as to how wet, how mild it's been, because no doubt you've been aware that
12:59 it has been a wet and a relatively mild winter and a relatively mild and wet February as
13:05 well.
13:06 And if we start off looking at rainfall, and this map, we are looking at winter.
13:11 So meteorologically, we're talking December, January, February.
13:15 Winter so far, so up to and including data for the 26th of February.
13:19 We don't quite have today's data just yet, because it hasn't yet finished.
13:23 And this is comparing the rainfall that we have seen this winter to the average from
13:28 the 1991 to 2020 data set.
13:31 And the whites show where it's been around average, the little dots of brown, they've
13:36 been slightly drier than average.
13:38 But the blues are where it's been wetter than average.
13:40 And you can see across much of the country, it's been much wetter than average.
13:45 This area towards central southern UK has been significantly wetter.
13:49 Some places have seen more than 170%.
13:51 I think some places have seen close to, if not more than double their average winter
13:55 rainfall, or is that February?
13:59 Not entirely sure.
14:00 But lots of places have seen a very wet winter and a wet February, particularly across southern
14:05 UK.
14:06 So if we look at that in a bit more detail, or actually just go back to the UK, I think
14:11 it's already the 10th wettest winter for the UK.
14:15 And it's like we have more rain to come through the next couple of days, the last few days
14:20 of February and last few days of winter.
14:23 So that record could get higher.
14:25 But yeah, likely to be, it's definitely in the top 10 in terms of wettest.
14:28 I don't think it will be record breaking, but it is likely to be in the top 10.
14:32 However, now if we look at February and we look at southern England, because I just showed
14:36 you on the map, through winter it has been pretty wet there.
14:39 For southern England, the current rainfall total is above the record at this stage in
14:44 the month.
14:45 If you've not seen this chart before, the black line shows us the average rainfall total
14:49 as we go through the month.
14:51 And it's the cumulative rainfall total.
14:54 So that's why it's going up and up, because every day you get more and more rain based
14:57 on where you are in the month in as much as it takes into account what's already happened.
15:03 So it's not just the daily rainfall totals.
15:05 It's the cumulative rainfall through the month.
15:07 The orange line at the top is the record for the wettest February on record, particularly
15:12 the wettest stage in the month on each day, and then at the end, the wettest on record
15:17 for the whole month.
15:19 And then this blue line with the shaded area underneath shows where we are currently for
15:23 this February.
15:25 And what you can see is after initially a dry start - oops, I've clicked, biscuits - as
15:30 we go through, so after initially dry start to the month, we then had some pretty wet
15:35 weather around the 8th of February, then again around the 17th of February and quite recently.
15:40 And so currently, southern England has had more rain at this stage in February through
15:46 the month so far than it ever has done at this stage in the month.
15:50 It's not quite higher than the record.
15:52 The record's a little bit higher.
15:54 There is more rain to come, so it's possible that we may exceed that total through the
15:59 next few days once we get to the end of the month.
16:01 But currently, it's above the record for this stage in the month, but not quite above the
16:07 record for the whole month.
16:08 However, if we look at East Anglia, same chart, again for February, and this time you can
16:14 see that this month's line is well above the average for this stage in the month and also
16:20 above the record for this stage in the month and also above the record for the whole month.
16:28 And it's worth noting that we got above this line - this is for East Anglia - we got above
16:34 this line on the 22nd, so with a week left to go in the month, it was already East Anglia's
16:40 wettest February on record.
16:43 And we have seen a bit more rain and there'll be a bit more rain, so that line's going to
16:46 go even higher.
16:47 But yes, a very wet February for East Anglia, the wettest on record, and it reached that
16:52 record with a week left to go of the month.
16:59 The other thing then, it's been wet, it's also been mild for many of us.
17:02 So again, looking at the UK as a whole for winter, and this chart again compares what
17:09 we've seen mean temperature for this winter with the average, again based on 1991 to 2020
17:15 anomaly and across parts of Scotland, temperatures have been near normal for the time of year.
17:19 But the further south and east you go, it's been warmer and some places have been more
17:25 than two degrees warmer than average through the season as a whole.
17:30 That's quite interesting.
17:31 I think the UK is definitely going to be one of the top, I think it may be even the sixth
17:36 or seventh, roughly at the moment, one of the warmest winters on record, definitely
17:40 in the top 10.
17:42 And that's no surprise, I'm sure that you'll have noticed just how mild it's been through
17:45 much of the winter.
17:46 We haven't had many significant cold spells.
17:50 There have been some, but not many.
17:52 But again, now if we look at February, but this time for the UK, and a similar chart
17:57 to that rainfall one that I showed you, but this time looking at mean temperatures as
18:00 we went through the month.
18:01 And if you watched last week's Deep Dive with Alex Deidken, he actually showed you a very
18:05 similar chart to this, I think, but he stopped it obviously earlier, he had a week less data.
18:10 And at that point, the UK was at the highest mean temperature through the whole month at
18:16 this point.
18:17 It was the highest that it ever had been on record.
18:20 However, since then, as we were expecting, we had that colder spell, I've already said
18:23 it did turn colder over the weekend and to start this week.
18:26 And so then the mean temperature through the whole month has actually dipped down and it's
18:29 now below the record.
18:30 So I think for February, it is going to be one of the warmest Februaries on record for
18:37 the UK.
18:38 I think it's around second, but it may change.
18:40 But it's going to tweak a little bit through the next few days with temperatures fluctuating.
18:44 But it's just to show that whilst it was on course to-- well, it wasn't on course, but
18:49 it was above the record at that point in the month a week ago, it has now just about dipped
18:53 down, but still well above average.
18:55 However, if we look again now at southern England, and it's still above the record line.
19:01 So for southern England, it's quite likely, although we are seeing a little bit of a dip
19:06 in temperatures at the moment, they're likely to rise again as we go towards the middle
19:10 of the week and maybe Thursday might be a bit colder.
19:12 But I think it's quite likely that February is going to be one of possibly the mildest
19:18 Februaries on record when you look at southern England.
19:22 Right.
19:25 What should we do next?
19:27 Should we look at the weather next week?
19:29 So I've already discussed what happens through the end of this week and into the weekend.
19:34 But into next week, there are some signs of some sort of blocking high perhaps.
19:40 And the greatest chance of the position of this high-- remember where the high pressure
19:45 sits plays a huge role in the weather that we get in the UK.
19:48 And there's a good chance that this high pressure is going to be sitting somewhere towards the
19:51 east, northeast of the UK, towards Scandinavia.
19:54 This is the most likely regime from ECMWF for Tuesday the 5th to Friday the 8th of March.
20:00 There are a couple of regimes which are very similar to this, and they all have similar
20:03 likelihood.
20:04 But roughly, the most likely regime is very similar to this, high pressure somewhere towards
20:08 the east, northeast of the UK.
20:10 Low pressure, though, towards the west.
20:11 That's important for one thing I'll come on to in a second.
20:14 But the position of this high and this low suggests that we're quite likely to drag in
20:18 a southeasterly flow across the country.
20:20 And that does two things.
20:21 It's quite a dry direction.
20:23 And so rainfall amounts likely to be lower than average for many places.
20:28 But it's also a warm direction.
20:29 So after temperatures drop as we go towards the end of this week, and then it stays a
20:34 little bit on the chilly side as we go through the weekend, I am expecting temperatures to
20:37 rise as we go into next week because of this change in direction.
20:41 And we drag in this warmer air from the southeast.
20:45 But the position of this low pressure towards the west is quite important because whilst
20:50 it is a dry direction, so many places will have quite a bit of dry weather, we could
20:53 see something a bit more unsettled and wetter towards western parts as we go through next
20:58 week.
20:59 So in a different way, and again ECMWF charts, but this time this is the pressure anomaly
21:03 for the whole week, Monday the 4th all the way to the Monday the 11th of March.
21:07 And similar to the chart I just showed, the pinks indicating that higher than average
21:12 pressure is more likely towards the northeast of the UK, lower than average towards the
21:15 southwest.
21:16 And that again goes with the idea that we have a southeasterly flow coming across the
21:20 UK.
21:21 If we then – so coming in from the southeast.
21:24 If we then look at our temperatures, and this is the temperature anomaly, again for the
21:28 same week, and the oranges show that slightly higher than average temperatures are more
21:33 likely as we go through next week.
21:35 For much of the UK, particularly the further east you are.
21:37 And then if we look at rainfall, and like I said it's a dry direction, so for much of
21:41 the UK it does look like it's going to be around or drier than average, though towards
21:45 the west, the proximity to any low pressure centre that could develop towards the west
21:50 of the UK.
21:51 That means it may be a bit more unsettled here.
21:54 But exactly where we see that boundary between the wetter weather in the west, the drier
21:58 weather in the east, that's all to play for.
22:00 But yeah, hints that we could see something a little bit drier and warmer, at least across
22:04 eastern and southeastern parts of the UK as we go through next week.
22:08 What happens thereafter, and just to go back to the pressure chart, there are hints that
22:13 we may see the high pressure shifting towards more northern parts or to the north of the
22:17 UK.
22:18 And that would allow for an easterly flow to come in across the country.
22:21 And that's a slightly colder direction than a southeasterly.
22:25 So you may have a colder spell, but a lot to play for.
22:28 It may not be that we have high pressure actually dominating towards the north of the UK.
22:32 It may just be that there's higher pressure, which stops any significant low pressure systems
22:38 coming across.
22:39 So it just may be a bit calmer, a bit less unsettled.
22:43 But then what happens looking further ahead?
22:46 And as I said, it's the start of meteorological spring on Friday.
22:49 It's the 1st of March.
22:50 It's not the start of astronomical spring.
22:52 That's not until the spring equinox, which is on the 20th, I think, this year.
22:56 In fact, that actually brings me to a question that we were discussing in the office yesterday.
23:01 When do you think spring starts?
23:03 When do you consider spring to start?
23:05 Let me know in the comments, because yes, meteorologically speaking, spring starts on
23:09 the 1st of March.
23:10 Our seasons, each of them run for three months, and spring is March, April, May.
23:14 We do that so that our climate records are more easy to put together and to store and
23:19 to make comparisons.
23:21 It's nice and simple.
23:22 Whereas astronomically, it changes with the equinox and the solstice, and that date changes
23:28 throughout the year.
23:29 And so although this year is a little different because it's a leap year, so winter technically
23:32 has an extra day compared to the rest of the time, but nonetheless, it's more simple when
23:38 you do it this way meteorologically.
23:40 But let me know when you consider spring to start.
23:43 Do leave a comment.
23:45 But let's look at what is likely or what is looking like the weather we can expect as
23:50 we go through into March.
23:52 And these are-- so this is based on the seasonal forecast that the Met Office has issued, and
23:58 it looks at the most likely scenarios in terms of both temperature, rainfall, and also wind.
24:06 And so it's worth bearing in mind that as we go through March, we are suggesting that
24:09 around average is most likely.
24:11 Around average still means that there could be some colder spells.
24:14 There may be some milder or warmer spells.
24:16 There will be some wet and windy weather at times.
24:19 It will also be dry at times.
24:21 That is all average, particularly as we go through March.
24:24 But sometimes there are stronger signs that colder than average is more likely or wetter
24:29 than average is more likely or something like that.
24:31 In this instance, really, there is no major signs.
24:35 Perhaps you can see that there's a slightly greater chance of colder than average, 25%,
24:41 compared to milder than average, only 15% for March.
24:46 And I just said that the start of March is likely to start pretty mild because of that
24:51 southeasterly.
24:52 So you could see some-- maybe we'll get a bit colder.
24:55 So there's the potential for a colder spell, but it's definitely no guarantee.
25:00 The other thing to bear in mind, looking at rainfall, and again, around average most likely,
25:05 drier than average not particularly likely, slightly wetter than average or wetter than
25:08 average is a bit more likely than drier, but again, only around 25%.
25:12 That being said, we've had so much rain recently.
25:15 We've already been through the records and the totals that we've had through February
25:19 and through winter.
25:20 And so any further significant rainfall that could come through March, and there is a sign
25:25 that we could see some, is likely to make any ongoing issues a little bit worse.
25:29 So just bear that in mind, that we're saying average is most likely, but it could be a
25:33 bit wetter, and that could make any ongoing issues worse.
25:37 In terms of winds, then calmer is ever so slightly more likely than windy, again, average
25:40 most likely.
25:42 And that goes with the idea that less likely to see storms developing.
25:46 We've had a lot of storms this storm season.
25:48 Remember, our storm season starts in September.
25:50 Since then, we've had 10 storms, and we had two storms at the end of last storm season
25:55 in October.
25:56 So I think we've had 12 storms in a sixth month period, because the last storm we had
26:01 in the UK was actually in January.
26:03 So February looks like it will be the first month since July when we haven't had a named
26:07 storm here in the UK.
26:09 And it's most likely that that quieter spell, or that unstormy spell, is that a word, continues
26:15 as we go into March.
26:17 It's worth bearing in mind, like I said, I think we're less likely on average to see
26:22 storms in spring compared to winter and autumn anyway.
26:25 So that's no major surprise.
26:26 A quick look at spring as a whole then, and a similar table, and it shows similar things.
26:30 Average is most likely again, though the trend to warmer, especially when you take into account
26:36 the fact that for March, colder was ever so slightly more likely than warmer.
26:40 For spring as a whole, warmer is ever so slightly more likely than colder.
26:45 But always worth pointing out that average is most likely, both when it comes to temperature,
26:52 rainfall, and also wind.
26:56 And so average is pretty likely.
26:58 So that's the main story for this coming spring.
27:00 No major signs for anything particularly overly wet, overly windy, or overly cold.
27:05 But like I pointed out before, with a caveat, although we're saying average is most likely,
27:10 it is possible it goes either way.
27:12 And even within an average season, there will be some drier, some wetter, some colder, some
27:17 warmer spells.
27:19 Brilliant.
27:20 Then, oh, one last thing that I wanted to point out, and I mentioned it at the start,
27:25 but it is very unsettled in the Mediterranean at the moment.
27:28 This is Storm Dorothea, which was named by the Italian Met Service yesterday, and it's
27:32 bringing some heavy rain across parts of Italy, yes, but also into parts of France,
27:37 northern Spain, across parts of Greece, Algeria as well.
27:40 Some places seeing well over a month's worth of rain in just a few days.
27:44 Some thunderstorms, intense thunderstorms, and some very strong winds leading to rough
27:48 seas as well.
27:49 So very unsettled weather there.
27:51 But it's not just one storm that they're having.
27:53 There's two.
27:54 There's a separate feature, which was named today again by the Italian Met Service's Storm
27:58 Emil.
27:59 And that's going to add to the unsettled picture that they've started the week with.
28:03 So more very wet, very windy, thundery weather to come, affecting parts of the Mediterranean,
28:08 particularly around Italy, but also, like I say, North Africa as well, seeing some pretty
28:13 unsettled weather too.
28:15 So although it's been a storm-free month across the UK this February, a very different story
28:20 for Italy, where they've just had two storms just through the last couple of days.
28:25 That's everything that I wanted to go through, like I said at the start.
28:28 Thank you so much for joining me.
28:29 I do hope you found this interesting.
28:31 We do these Deep Dives every week on a Tuesday.
28:35 And I will be in the comments for a little while after this first appears on YouTube.
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28:40 I'll try and answer any questions you have.
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28:55 Wonderful.
28:56 I hope you have a lovely rest of your day, and we will be back again soon.
29:00 Bye-bye.
29:00 Bye-bye.