Week Ahead – High pressure in charge 15/03/21
High pressure will dominate the UK’s weather this week but that doesn’t mean it will always be warm, sunny… or dry. Met Office meteorologist Aidan McGivern has the forecast.
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00:00Hello, and welcome to the Met Office forecast for the week ahead. A much quieter week to
00:05come compared to last week thanks to high pressure which will bring mostly settled weather.
00:10But the key word here is mostly. There's still plenty to talk about because it won't always
00:15be sunny, it won't always be warm and it certainly won't always be dry because there will be
00:19some rain for parts of eastern and northern Scotland, England and Wales first thing Tuesday.
00:26Very quickly the cloud and rain clear to the east, hanging on there into the afternoon
00:30for East Anglia and the south east, but sunny skies pushing elsewhere from the north west
00:36looking like a beautiful afternoon for many places. And it will feel pleasant enough in
00:41that sunshine if you're sheltered from the wind. Temperatures, south east England, south
00:46east Wales I should say, as well as the west country, 16 or 17 Celsius possible. 14, maybe
00:52even 15 Celsius for the central belt and into southern Scotland. But you'd need to
00:56be out of the wind because it will be a gusty wind, especially for Scotland as well as northern
01:01England and over the higher ground and just on the lee of the higher ground, well those
01:06wind gusts will be reaching 40, 45 miles an hour, perhaps even 50 miles an hour for exposed
01:11parts of the Grampians. So a blustery afternoon to come because we're on the periphery of
01:16high pressure. It's not quite centred over the UK just yet and just to the east this
01:21weather front lingers, likely to return at some point middle of the week. But we start
01:26off Wednesday with the clearest skies closest to the high and the lightest winds and that
01:31means a touch of frost to start things off, especially northern Ireland but also western
01:34parts of England and Wales. Further east, not quite as frosty because we'll have a lot
01:39of cloud and some drips and jabs of rain near that North Sea coast but not especially much.
01:44Most places are going to be dry and bright yet again and once more feeling pleasantly
01:48warm in any sunny spells in south-west England, parts of Wales as well as central and southern
01:54Scotland doing best for any warmth. High pressure then slightly reorientates itself heading
02:01into Thursday. It will pull in a bit more cloud for northern parts of the country but
02:06further south we've got more of a north-easterly developing. That will push a weather front
02:10in from the east and that's likely to bring thicker cloud and some showers. They'll make
02:16progress across England as well as into Wales by the afternoon spreading in from the east.
02:23But for most, apart from some drizzle for north-west Scotland, it's again looking like
02:27a largely dry day on Thursday. Cloudier skies but where we do get some brightness, perhaps
02:31central and southern Scotland, parts of northern Ireland, that's where the warmer spots will
02:35be, 14 Celsius still possible. 10 to 12 elsewhere but feeling chilly along this North Sea coast
02:43and it's that colder air that's going to make more progress across the southern half of
02:48the UK during Friday. We're also likely to see further showers coming in across parts
02:55of England and Wales but mostly across East Anglia and the south-east. Further north,
03:00cloudy skies once again for Scotland and northern Ireland, perhaps some drizzle around north-west
03:05shores and hills but otherwise it's again largely settled and benign and again that's
03:12where the warmer spots will be, northern Ireland and central and southern Scotland. But a significant
03:18temperature contrast compared with further south. East Anglia and the south-east, five
03:23or six Celsius at best and there's a possibility that those temperatures will be a degree or
03:28two lower and if that happens, well we'll see some wintry showers so some sleet, hail
03:34or even snow mixed in with the heavier downpours, especially for East Anglia and the south-east.
03:40So some uncertainty about the precise temperatures and the wintry content of any of these showers
03:44but either way, Friday looks like the Nadir of the cold in the south-east because by Saturday
03:49high pressure builds across the whole of the country once again, the winds ease and milder
03:54air to the north-west starts to push southwards, pulling the cold air away. With high pressure
04:01there for Saturday and into Sunday, well once again it'll be quiet. See I told you there
04:06was plenty of weather to talk about and we'll keep you updated day to day on our social
04:10media channels. Bye bye.