Week ahead – Not much rain but fog and frost feature heavily
After some rain early on most of the week will be dry but frosty nights will become more prevalent and fog will become more widespread. Alex Deakin talks us through the day to day details.
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00:00Hello, welcome to the weather for the week ahead from the Met Office.
00:04A bit of rain around for the first couple of days this week.
00:06But once that's out of the way, most of the week looking dry.
00:10Now, some days we'll see some blue sky and some sunshine.
00:13Seems to have been in short supply so far this winter.
00:16However, we're also going to see a bit more frost overnight
00:20and in places some dense fog patches, particularly
00:24towards the back end of the week.
00:26When the headline looks like this,
00:27you can usually guarantee that high pressure will be dominating.
00:31But it doesn't start the week in control.
00:34We have these weather fronts just trickling across the UK,
00:37but high pressure to the south and high pressure out to the west
00:40kind of merge together and force away this weather front
00:44and then sit in place across the UK,
00:47keeping the weather fronts to the north.
00:49It will be quite breezy at times across Scotland
00:51and there will be these weather fronts near the far north
00:53bringing some rain here.
00:55But for most, high pressure is dominating.
00:58Why so? Well, if we rewind the clock and take a look at the jet stream,
01:03the winds high up in the atmosphere,
01:05it's been fairly far south over recent times,
01:08shifting low pressure systems just to the north of the UK.
01:11But through this week, the jet stream becomes pretty active,
01:14but also pushes well to the north,
01:17taking the low pressures even further north from Iceland.
01:20And actually what happens is high up in the atmosphere,
01:22the winds develop around a large area of high pressure high up in the atmosphere.
01:27So we have high pressure all the way through the atmosphere.
01:30And it's where the high pressure settles that the winds will be lightest across the south.
01:34And that's where we're most likely to have fog patches.
01:38That's all towards the end of the week.
01:39There we are starting the week with these weather fronts across the UK,
01:42bringing outbreaks of rain across England and Wales initially on Tuesday,
01:45but clearing from northern England.
01:46Wales a much brighter day here and for Scotland and Northern Ireland.
01:50Some showers keeping going over the Highlands,
01:52the Western Isles and the Northern Isles and still pretty windy here too.
01:55But further south, the winds fairly light, a dank but pretty mild day across the south.
02:01Temperatures 10, 11 degrees cooler day further north,
02:05but still with some sunshine feeling quite pleasant for the time of year with temperatures around average.
02:10Now, during Tuesday evening,
02:12those weather fronts continue to move away as the high pressure builds in.
02:15And so with clear skies and light winds,
02:17that is going to allow a frost to form pretty quickly over northern England
02:21and then across the Midlands.
02:22And then as those fronts pull away through the early hours, eventually further south.
02:26And as well as it turning frosty,
02:28we are going to see some fog patches forming where the winds are light across some parts of England and East Wales.
02:34Further north, a bit more of a breeze, a bit more clouds, a bit of patchy rain across the far northwest.
02:39But that should stop too much in the way of frost and fog.
02:45On to the details for Wednesday.
02:46And as I say, that fog could be quite stubborn, could take a while to clear away, but it should be fairly patchy.
02:51So actually for the bulk of England, Wales, Northern Ireland and much of southern Scotland,
02:55Wednesday is a cracking day if you like sunshine.
02:58Temperatures after that frosty start picking up to around about the average for the middle part of January.
03:04Six, seven, eight degrees mildest across the far northwest where it will be quite windy and quite cloudy.
03:09But bar the odd shower staying largely dry here.
03:14There is a weather front though close to the far north that does tend to push a little bit further south as we go through Wednesday night into Thursday.
03:21But high pressure still dominating across the south and it's close to the centre of the high where the winds are light.
03:28That's where we're going to get a frost forming.
03:30But we're also going to get some potentially quite thick fog patches by Thursday morning.
03:36Could last all day where those fog patches form.
03:38So that's just something to be aware of.
03:40Further north with more moisture, more clouds, patchy rain again over the Highlands, the Western Isles and that weather front bringing some rain to the northern isles.
03:48Always quite breezy here as well.
03:49But again, that's where the highest temperatures will be.
03:51Nine or ten Celsius.
03:53Further south, mostly single figures, mostly close to the average.
03:57Feeling OK in the sunshine.
03:59But if that fog sticks, temperatures are really going to struggle.
04:03We may not get above two or three Celsius in a few places where that fog lingers all day.
04:08And it's a similar picture as we head through Thursday night and into Friday.
04:11The high just perhaps shrinking a little further south, that weather front just edging a little bit more into the mainland of Scotland.
04:18So again, likely to be cloudy here with some patchy rain and always more cloud generally across Scotland.
04:24But for the rest of the UK, yes, generally dry and bright.
04:27We'll see some sunshine.
04:29But as long as you don't have that fog.
04:31And again, if that fog does form or should say where it does form, it'll linger all day and it will really suppress the temperatures.
04:39If it brightens up five, six, seven Celsius.
04:41But even in the sunnier zones, temperatures just not quite as high on Friday as Thursday.
04:46Again, the highest temperatures across northern Scotland.
04:48Although by this stage, we could see some colder air pushing down towards Shetland.
04:54High pressure likely to continue to dominate into the weekends.
04:57Right at the end of the week, though, these low pressure systems just looking a little more threatening,
05:02potentially bringing some clouds and a bit of patchy rain into the West.
05:06But generally that high pressure hanging on or that is showing signs of shrinking away.
05:11So continued likelihood of fog and frost.
05:14But apart from a bit of patchy rain in the West, staying largely dry.
05:18Keep up to date, particularly as we go through the week with where we're going to see those fog patches forming.
05:25The best way to do that, of course, follow us across social media.