This is the Met Office UK Weather forecast for the next 10 days 23/10/2024.
After some uncertainty in the next few days it looks drier next week, which may be good news if you’re on half-term.
Bringing you this 10 day weather outlook is Alex Deakin.
After some uncertainty in the next few days it looks drier next week, which may be good news if you’re on half-term.
Bringing you this 10 day weather outlook is Alex Deakin.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Is it looking drier for next week? For many that's half term. And is it really
00:05turning colder for Halloween? We'll try and answer both of those questions in
00:08this week's Met Office 10-day trend. But actually it's the shorter term that's
00:13been giving us meteorologists nightmares of late because there's more uncertainty
00:18than usual in the forecast for Friday and Saturday. Here's the reason why. High
00:23up in the sky the jet stream is dipping to the south way out in the Atlantic.
00:28This is called a trough. Now this is bodily moving towards the UK and it
00:32generates areas of low pressure. But what's really happening is it's kind of
00:36dipping even further south and almost doubling back on itself. And when this
00:40squeezes together like that, and particularly when it doubles back on itself, we call
00:44that a disrupting trough. And it always provides more headaches for us
00:48meteorologists. Why so? Well if we take a rewind and look at what's happening to
00:54the pressure pattern, it's this area of low pressure and these weather fronts
00:58in particular, and how they interact with this disrupting trough that causes
01:03the headaches for Friday and Saturday. And just when this area of low pressure
01:07will develop, how it develops and how quickly it moves. Now this is the Met
01:11Office model projections of the low pressure system for Friday from midnight
01:17last night. But actually this is way faster than most of the other computer
01:22models are suggesting. And of course sometimes it's not that useful just to
01:25look at one model, it's useful to look at many. And we also use something called
01:30ensembles, where we run the same model but many many times. And that's what this
01:34is showing. We call this a Dalmatian plot. Each one of these dots is representative
01:39of where that low pressure could be. And these are previous runs from the
01:44European model. And they're actually showing that over the past couple of
01:48runs in particular, there's been more clustering of the low pressure down to
01:52the southwest of the UK. You can see it more clearly here. These dots clustering
01:56down to the southwest. So the most likely scenario, instead of that low whizzing
02:00across the UK, is that it's sitting more down to the southwest between the
02:05Republic of Ireland and Cornwall probably midday on Friday. So this is the
02:09most likely scenario now, generating a band of rain crossing the country on
02:13Friday that could be quite heavy in places as well. And then that low
02:17drifting its way slowly north and eastwards. Notice the isobars quite close
02:20together. That could generate some quite gusty winds across the southwest in
02:25particular, before that low kind of fizzles out as it crosses the country
02:29during Saturday. What does that mean for our weather? Well, crucially, it means if
02:33you've got plans on Saturday, you should keep up to date with the forecast because
02:36there is more uncertainty than usual. But generally speaking, Friday and
02:40Saturday we'll be seeing bands of showery rain, particularly in western
02:44areas, and the possibility of some gusty winds down to the southwest. Now I'd love
02:49to tell you that the weather gets more straightforward after that, but actually
02:52it doesn't really. For Sunday and Monday in particular, there's still
02:56complications. And again, it's the bigger picture that tells us why. So that dip in
03:01the jet stream, that is clearing away, that trough. And the jet is now coming
03:05more in from the west, but it's being fed by a couple of different arms, if you
03:09like. And this little fella is, in particular, giving us even more headaches
03:14because that has the tropical remnants of Hurricane Oscar mixed into it. No
03:20longer a hurricane, but it does have that tropical air in it. And if we zoom in
03:24and run through the weekend, what happens is a bit of that warmer air gets pushed
03:28further ahead and generates its own little area of low pressure. So this is a
03:33weather system, little area of low, depending on exactly how it interacts
03:37with the jet stream will determine its track. But it's still got some
03:40tropical air mixed in with it, so it's likely to bring a lot of moisture, a lot
03:44of cloud and some outbreaks of rain coming in from the west on that more
03:48active jet stream through Sunday and into Monday. So what does that mean? Well,
03:53again, it looks like western areas will see the wettest weather for Sunday and
03:57Monday. And that's what's being backed up here by the Met Office, European and GFS,
04:02the American computer model. These are the rainfall accumulations over Sunday
04:08and into Monday. And they're all highlighting that western areas, western
04:11Scotland, Wales, northwest England, the west of Northern Ireland, will see the
04:16wettest conditions. The American model has the heaviest rain a little further
04:19south, again, depending on the exact trajectory of that low pressure system.
04:24But they're all also highlighting that eastern areas may well stay largely dry.
04:28So westerly winds bringing cloud and rain in from the west for Sunday and
04:34Monday. Slightly counterintuitively, this is one of those 10-day trends where
04:39actually the longer range into next week. We have more confidence in the forecast
04:44than in the short to medium term because there's quite a strong signal that for
04:49next week, half term for many, this will be the pressure pattern, the dominant
04:54weather situation with high pressure sitting somewhere close to the United
04:59Kingdom. Now, high pressure means the air is sinking. So that would bring a lot of
05:03dry weather. Still quite breezy with the isobars closer together, closer to the
05:07low pressure systems to the far northwest. But in this weather scenario,
05:12which is most likely through the middle of next week, that would bring quite a
05:16lot of dry weather. Not necessarily sunny. It's likely to be quite cloudy and a bit
05:20dank and murky at times as well. But that is backed up by this graph, which is the
05:26multi-model probabilities where we look at all of the computer models and run
05:31the ensembles and get percentages of the different flavours of weather, if you
05:36like. And the dominant one through next week, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday in
05:40particular, is this mid-orange colour, which is indicative of high pressure
05:44sitting close to the UK. So a pretty strong signal that that will be the
05:48dominant weather pattern. But that signal then diminishes as we go through towards
05:53the back end of the week and into the weekend with pretty much a more even
05:57distribution of the different weather flavours. But quite a strong signal there
06:01that through the middle of next week, high pressure will be close by to the UK.
06:06Now, next Thursday is of course Halloween and there has been some chatter that it's
06:11going to turn much colder. This horror show is the European postage stamps.
06:17Again, the ensemble weather forecasts where we run the computer model many,
06:22many times. 50 different postage stamps here. 50 different possible scenarios.
06:28The colours representing basically the warmth of the air with the yellows and
06:32the oranges milder and the greens and the blues colder. And you can just about
06:37make out, particularly if I zoom in, that most of them have the UK covered in the
06:43warmer air, the yellows and the oranges. But there are a couple, number 23 here
06:49and number 11, that have the cooler air, certainly trying to push in across
06:53northern parts of the UK. But that's a couple of examples out of 50. So less
06:58than a 5% chance of that happening. And even if these were to come off, it would
07:02just indicate that it would be turning a bit colder across the north and there
07:06may be some snow on the Scottish hills, which isn't unusual for the end of October.
07:11So no strong signals that Halloween is at all going to be particularly cold.
07:17In fact, for most of next week, temperatures around about average,
07:20generally speaking, with that high pressure close by, that would bring a lot of dry
07:26weather, not necessarily sunny, often quite cloudy. And of course, this time of year
07:29with high pressure, light winds that can bring stubborn mist and fog.
07:34There is an increasing chance, but still only a small chance of things turning a bit
07:38colder towards the back end of next week. If you have day to day weather dependent
07:44plans, then please do keep up to date with the latest forecast.
07:48And if you're watching this on YouTube, don't forget to hit subscribe.