10 Day trend – Summer’s last hurrah? 21/08/2019
Following a changeable summer so far, one final big change in the weather is on its way for the final 10 days – Met Office meteorologist Aidan McGivern has the 10 Day Trend.
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00:00Hello, and welcome to the Met Office 10-day trend, a 10-day period that takes us through
00:05to the end of the meteorological summer and of course includes, for many people, a bank
00:10holiday weekend. So you might expect the weather to be unsettled. It's certainly been very
00:15changeable this summer so far. But you'd be wrong, because the weather is actually turning
00:20drier. It's also turning warmer over the next 10 days. And in some places, it will be hot
00:26during the bank holiday weekend. The jet stream, it's been a common feature of our weather
00:31through the last few weeks and months. And it's also moving north over the next few days,
00:37allowing the weather across the UK to settle down. But for the time being, well, the jet
00:41stream is pointed straight towards northern parts of Britain, carrying with it a succession
00:46of low-pressure systems and weather fronts. One feature crossing northern Britain through
00:50Wednesday night, bringing some heavy rain. Another feature lined up to come in for Thursday.
00:57So no sooner do we say goodbye to this rainfall as we begin the day on Thursday across northern
01:02England and north Wales, we'll start to see more rain joining in across northern Ireland,
01:07western Scotland, the far north-west of England. Very wet weather over the hills of north-western
01:11Britain. Western Scotland will see copious amounts of rainfall through the second half
01:15of Thursday and through much of Friday. Because once this weather front arrives, we're just
01:20piling a lot of moisture-laden winds up against the hills of western Scotland. And the rainfall
01:26here will tot up over 36 hours or so. Good shelter, though, for north-east Scotland and
01:32for the rest of England and Wales. South of Cumbria, largely bright, dry, sunny spells,
01:38just one or two showers. Temperatures rising, 25 Celsius there for London, 26 on Friday.
01:44You can see the extent of the warm and sunny weather starting to become more widespread
01:49across central and southern parts of Britain whilst we cling on to the wet weather in north-west
01:54Scotland. But even here, the rain is moving away through Friday. The whole weather pattern
01:59is shifting its way northwards. Now recently, the weather patterns have been coming in from
02:03the west, crossing the country and moving eastwards. But a change is on its way for
02:08Friday. The whole weather pattern is starting to move its way north. And as these weather
02:13fronts move away from northern Scotland, we'll start to draw up these red colours across
02:19southern Britain. And that means it's going to turn increasingly warm and sunny widely
02:25at the start of the bank holiday weekend. As I mentioned before, it's all courtesy of
02:30the jet stream, really. The jet stream turning into a much more wriggly feature and heading
02:36its way northwards. This is how it looks at the start of the weekend. And you can see
02:40this more amplified pattern to the jet stream compared to, for example, what I mentioned
02:46before, which is the straight line jet stream that we've got at the moment, directing weather
02:52systems straight for the UK and keeping us relatively cool. What is responsible for this
02:58change in the jet stream? Well, we have to look on the other side of the pond, North
03:02America, and you can see the much more amplified jet stream over North America on Wednesday.
03:08And that starts to have a ripple effect downstream. You can see the amplification of the jet stream
03:14starting to become more pronounced heading into the weekend. That ripple ends up over
03:19the UK for the bank holiday weekend. Not only that, but it's so amplified, in fact, that
03:26part of the jet stream dives very far south into Iberia and then becomes completely detached.
03:32Now, whilst this small circulation heads to the south of the UK, it will draw up these
03:37reds increasingly so through Sunday and Monday across the UK, increasingly hot air. But the
03:44main part of the jet stream is now pushed to the north of the UK. And in its wake, we've
03:50got high pressure. So we lose the lows, we say high to high pressure, and the weather
03:55settles down countrywide, more or less, for the start of the weekend. This is how it's
04:01looking on Saturday. Some hazy cloud around. It's not going to be entirely blue skies,
04:08but a lot of dry weather, just a few showers in the far north of Scotland where it will
04:12be fairly breezy, otherwise bright and increasingly warm. 30 degrees there for London, but widely
04:18mid to high 20s across England, Wales into southern Scotland. By Sunday, there's temperatures
04:23rising even further. In fact, it's largely sunny skies across the majority of the UK.
04:30Central Scotland, 25 degrees there across much of England and Wales. High 20s, 32 Celsius,
04:36the likely high temperature there for London and the southeast. Of course, it's not a bank
04:41holiday for Scotland on Monday. And in the northwest of Scotland, it will be a bit breezier
04:47and a little bit cloudier, but rain tending to stay away whilst sunshine develops elsewhere.
04:52And once again, mid to high 20s. Could see 30 degrees somewhere like Cambridgeshire into
04:57Lincolnshire. Now, if we get 33 degrees, it will be the hottest late summer bank holiday
05:03on record. Only 31 and a half degrees to beat. And so it looks likely that it will be a record
05:10breaker as far as bank holidays go. Of course, it changes its date every year, but nevertheless,
05:15this is a long running late summer bank holiday. And with that heat and humidity could spark
05:21off one or two showers. But most places, most of the weekend will be dry, bright and
05:27warming up. So most places dry, warm sunshine and it will be hot in places. But will it
05:34continue? That's the question. Into next week, will we keep the hot air coming our way? Well,
05:39it looks likely that yes, through much of next week, the jet stream will remain in this
05:44highly amplified pattern, keeping low pressure sitting to the west of us rather than moving
05:49across us. High pressure close by on the continent and will continue to draw hot air
05:55and plenty of sunshine up from the continent. But with that rising heat comes the threat
06:01of thundery showers. So always something to watch out for next week. Thundery showers
06:05being imported from the continent. In addition, occasionally the jet stream may become a little
06:11flatter. And if it does become a little flatter, then it will drive low pressure systems into
06:17Western Scotland, Northern Ireland, perhaps a bit more cloud, a bit more of a breeze and
06:21cooler air here. But high pressure will always be close to the south through next week. And
06:26that does mean that the weather on the whole will be drier, it will be sunnier and it will
06:31be much warmer than recent. So last 10 days of summer, summer's last hurrah. It looks
06:37like some warm sunshine is on its way back to the UK.