10 Day Trend – Drier weather on the horizon
fter a wet start to the month there is drier weather coming next week along with the likelihood of fog and frost. Before then though some more rain this week and a cold wind for the weekend. Alex Deakin has the details
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00:00Hello, and welcome along to the Met Office 10-day trend. You don't need me to tell you
00:04that October so far has been pretty wet. But looking forward to next week, it does look
00:10an awful lot drier. High pressure will be the dominant feature, it looks like. Not completely
00:15dry, still a few showers around. And of course, at this time of year, when we have high pressure
00:19and light winds, well, that can mean fog and also frost. But it does look drier next week.
00:25The transition to that drier period will be over the weekend when high pressure starts
00:30to move in. Certainly this weekend will be a lot drier than last weekend. And there should
00:35be a fair bit of sunshine around as well, albeit with some showers and a cold wind blowing
00:40as well. Before we get there, though, the rest of this week does look rather soggy.
00:44Fine for most this Wednesday, but more wet weather coming in overnight Wednesday night
00:49and lasting into Thursday. And there is a Met Office yellow weather warning in force
00:54for the rain that's sweeping in. Let's take a look at that first of all. Then the bigger
00:57picture shows low pressure swinging in, bringing that wet weather through the night and first
01:03on Thursday, slowly clearing away. Then a weather front swings south on Friday, bringing
01:07a band of heavy showers across the country. And then we start to see the northerly winds
01:12picking up behind that. And that's what will bring a real chill this weekend, a cold feel.
01:17But also high pressure is trying to edge in from the west. And it's that high pressure
01:23which will dominate and, as I say, bring a much drier weekend compared to last weekend.
01:28Why are we seeing the switch? Well, we need to look high up in the atmosphere at the jet
01:31stream for that. And at the moment, the current situation, rewinding back to the here and
01:35now, we've got a jet stream powering across the Atlantic, an active jet stream, and it's
01:40coming in almost as a direct hit across the UK. And we have this kind of position of a
01:44jet stream. We call it a zonal flow, and it can mean the weather patterns changing pretty
01:49frequently with low pressure after low pressure. But as we move forward, we see a change in
01:54shape of the jet stream. It becomes more amplified. It goes up and down. And by Saturday, look
02:00at that position. It's almost at 90 degrees compared to where we started. And this is
02:05called a more meridional pattern. And when we have this kind of pattern, a meridional
02:10pattern, well, the weather patterns become slow moving. And that's why we've got that
02:15high pressure just gradually edging in through the weekend. Now, actually, last weekend,
02:19we had a meridional pattern and a slow moving pattern, but then we were stuck under low
02:24pressure. And that's why last weekend was so very wet. But this weekend, it looks like
02:28high pressure will be the dominant feature. So this weekend, yes, it will be cold, thanks
02:33to a brisk wind, certainly early on. And there will still be showers coming down in that
02:37northerly wind around the extreme east coast, the west coast as well, and on the north coast.
02:43But for many inland areas and on the south coast, it does look dry and bright for much
02:46of this weekend, albeit with a bit of a chill. Beyond that, well, as I said at the start,
02:52high pressure will dominate next week, but not for the whole week because that high that
02:56comes in through the weekend doesn't stick around. It gradually topples away. And there's
03:01a weather front coming in for Monday that will bring some rain. Now, there's question
03:05marks about timing, as you'd expect, this far ahead. But it does look as if most of
03:08us will see some rain on Monday from that weather front. Now, it's behind that that
03:12we see another area of high pressure tending to topple in. And this one does look like
03:17it will stick around and dominate through next week. So we are expecting high pressure
03:22to dominate. And this chart really shows that. This is the European model, the ECMWF probabilistic
03:28pressure pattern chart for next week. We've shown these before on the 10-day trends. If
03:34you remember, blue means low pressure. And red or pink means high pressure is the most
03:39likely. There's a lot of pink on that chart. Going down the y-axis, that's the previous
03:44model run from previous days. So the top line there, that's the most recent run. And going
03:48along the top there from left to right are the next few days. So we start blue because
03:53we've got low pressure in charge over the next couple of days. And we see that switch.
03:58But notice the switch actually starts to happen on Friday when there will still be some showers
04:02around. So although high pressure is dominant, it doesn't always mean that it's going to
04:05be gloriously dry and sunny everywhere. It just means it'll be drier. And the position
04:12of the high pressure will really be key, especially at this time of year when we've got light winds
04:18overnight, the nights are getting longer, that can allow fog to stick around. And winds
04:22are one of the key shifters of fog. So if the winds are light under high pressure, fog
04:27can tend to stick around. So that's one of the things we'll be looking at next week.
04:31With high pressure in control, it does look drier, but the position of the high is key.
04:36And there will be low pressure either side of it trying to push in from the east or from
04:39the west. So if the high is in this kind of position, there's still the likelihood of
04:43showers coming in across parts of the southeast and a cold northeasterly wind. If the high
04:48shifts a little bit further eastwards, then we could start to see weather fronts bringing
04:53showers into parts of the west. And all the while in the center of the high, yes, there
04:59will be plenty of dry and sunny weather, but there could also be some stubborn fog patches
05:03around as well. So the day-to-day detail for next week does depend on the exact position
05:08and shape of the high pressure. But overall, next week does look a lot drier than this
05:13week. We're pretty confident about that. Yes, there'll still be some showers and it'll still
05:16be on the chilly side, but generally a lot drier. Just need to be careful for some stubborn
05:21fog patches. And of course, with the nights getting longer, an increased chance of seeing
05:25some frost. For the day-to-day detail, make sure you keep
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