Week Ahead – A taste of winter later 22/11/21
A benign start to this week before a taste of winter in places later this week. Met Office meteorologist Aidan has the week ahead forecast.
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00:00Hi there and welcome to the Met Office forecast for the week ahead. Nothing out of the ordinary
00:04about the cold and unsettled weather we're expecting at the end of the week, but it will
00:09be out of place in this autumn because it has been a mild autumn so far and it's been
00:14relatively quiet as far as autumns are concerned. It stays that way at first this week, a lot
00:19of fine weather about, turning colder mid-week and then turning much more unsettled by the
00:23end of the week. At first, however, high pressure is in charge and that's keeping things relatively
00:28settled. However, by Wednesday that high pressure begins to build to the west of the UK, allowing
00:33lows to arrive from the north-west, bringing with them more unsettled weather, especially
00:38by Friday night with these tightening isobars and bringing colder air as they clear directly
00:45from the north. But we start off Tuesday with plenty of fine weather, most places dry, some
00:50sunny spells and any fog quite quickly dispersing during the morning. After a chilly start,
00:57the best of the sunshine will be through the Midlands, parts of Wales and the south-west.
01:00Cloudier skies elsewhere, a few spots of rain and drizzle for northern and western Scotland
01:05once again. The breeze in the north-west coming from the Atlantic there, but on the whole,
01:10temperatures not far from average, 8 to 10 Celsius. Those temperatures then falling overnight
01:14at such a frost in places, especially the south on Wednesday morning. Some more extensive
01:19fog patches I think first thing across southern parts of the UK, but some rain meanwhile pushes
01:25into Scotland and Northern Ireland, not much rain and it does tend to sink south during
01:29the day. So after that spell of wet weather in the north first thing, it pushes into northern
01:34England and north Wales and then brightening skies for Scotland and Northern Ireland, blustery
01:38showers follow and colder air digs in. So those showers will be falling as snow over
01:42the hills of Scotland, mainly above around 600 metres I think on Wednesday, but even
01:48colder air arrives on Thursday morning, so perhaps some snow to lower levels across northern
01:53Scotland for a time Thursday morning, settling over the hills. That cold air sinks south,
02:00a touch of frost in places first thing Thursday, but a bright start for many, actually plenty
02:04of crisp late autumn sunshine for large parts of the country, showers mainly restricted
02:09to coasts exposed to the northerly wind and they do tend to ease across northern Scotland,
02:14so not a huge amount of unsettled weather at this stage. Thursday is looking mostly
02:19fine for many places. Temperatures will be getting lower and then a slightly less cold
02:26interlude as these weather fronts start to topple in from the north-west Thursday night
02:30and into the start of Friday. They contain a little milder air, but also some outbreaks
02:35of rain. A wet start for northern parts of the country as we begin Friday, windy as well,
02:41frosty further south, but after the bright start, well the rain sinks south by the afternoon
02:47and so southern areas seeing a bright start and then rain arriving into the afternoon
02:51whilst it clears up across northern parts of the UK, followed by blustery showers again
02:57and once more the colder air returns from the north. This is when things could get quite
03:03tasty. These weather fronts are sinking south, but it's around the low pressure which is
03:08centred to the east of Scotland at this stage that the isobars really start to tighten up
03:13and that brings the threat of very strong winds indeed on Friday night into the north-west
03:18and then western parts of the UK, but it does depend on the depth and track of this low
03:23and at this point differences in various computer models emerge. They don't all suggest very
03:29strong winds in the west, so something we'll be watching closely over the next few days
03:33to see how it plays out. Meanwhile, this weather front, the wraparound occlusion could bring
03:38some very wet weather to north-east Scotland in particular on Friday night and some significant
03:42hill snow. Cold air pushes south behind it all and as a result any unsettled weather
03:49that comes south could contain some wintry stuff and when I say wintry stuff I'm talking
03:56about a mixture of rain, sleet, hail, snow, icy patches, all of that sort of thing because
04:02it becomes increasingly messy actually as we head into the weekend. Strengthening winds,
04:07especially on Friday night and into Saturday, coming from a cold direction, coming from
04:11the north, bring with them unsettled weather, outbreaks of rain and in places mainly over
04:17the higher ground but not exclusively there's the risk of some wintry stuff, sleet and snow.
04:23We will of course keep you updated on all of that and you can follow those updates on
04:27social media. Bye bye.