23 December - national forecast presented by Aidan McGivern
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00:00Hi there. Here at the Met Office we've been talking about a mild rather than white Christmas
00:05for some time. Despite the fact that it was a cold weekend in many places and some areas
00:11saw snow, the cold air that has arrived through the weekend is now on its way out, as this
00:17very large area of mild but gloomy weather arrives during the rest of Monday and it's
00:23here to stay until after Christmas. The warm front moving into western parts will bring
00:28drizzly rain to Scotland, much of western England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Some
00:33heavier bursts from time to time but mostly this is light and patchy rain and it's slowly
00:40progressing eastwards across the country. So staying mostly dry in the east and as the
00:45cloud builds it's going to still feel chilly in the east of the UK, 6 or 7 Celsius. The
00:51milder air confined for the time being to western areas, 11 or 12 Celsius for western
00:56England and Northern Ireland. That milder air is going to spread nationwide though overnight
01:02so actually the coldest air overnight will be at the start of the night and it progressively
01:08turns milder as the night continues. After dark the cloud just thickens, it lowers a
01:15lot of hill fog, some gloom by the start of Christmas Eve and those relatively high temperatures
01:24for the time of year, we're talking about double figures widely certainly across northern
01:28and western UK as the wind picks up. That's still 8 or 9 Celsius towards the south-east
01:34so the same kinds of temperatures that we'll have seen through the day. It is again a damp
01:40start to the day for much of Wales, northern England, much of Scotland and Northern Ireland
01:45although the rain to the south generally petering out first thing Christmas Eve and it's going
01:51to be increasingly north-western parts that see the damp weather on Christmas Eve itself.
01:56Drier towards the south but still a lot of low cloud covering the hills of western UK,
02:01some drizzle over the hills and coasts, hill fog, mist and murk. A few cloud breaks here
02:07and there but on the whole it's a grey day and a remarkably mild day for the time of
02:13year. Certainly for Christmas Eve we could see temperatures of 14 or 15 Celsius in one
02:20or two of the milder spots and actually it's towards the north where we're going to see
02:24the mildest air because that's where the south-westerly wind will be strongest and it will continue
02:29to strengthen during Christmas Eve night heading into the big day itself. Across northern parts
02:36of the UK, 40 to 50 mph wind gusts are possible for Christmas nights. Further south it's lighter
02:44winds, one or two cloud breaks but where that happens we could see some mist patches forming
02:48and a lot of low cloud once again, so that cloud covering the hills of the west bringing
02:53some patchy drizzle and hill fog but the more persistent and heavier rain tending to have
02:58fizzled out by this stage. Now we head into Christmas Day and it's more of the same, it's
03:04a grey start to the day but it is a mild start with temperatures widely 9 to 12 Celsius.
03:12Outbreaks of rain and a strong wind for the north-west of Scotland in particular and that
03:17rain really accumulating over the next few days, 40-50 mm in places. But it's drier to
03:23the south, actually for many it is a dry Christmas Day, there'll be some glimmers of brightness
03:29coming through across central and eastern parts of the UK but on the whole it is a cloudy
03:34one. Nevertheless, with lighter winds in the south and mostly dry, it's not looking too
03:40bad for a Christmas Day afternoon walk. The wet and windy weather largely affecting north-west
03:46Scotland at this stage but it is going to be breezy generally across northern parts
03:50of the country. And another mild one, not quite as mild as Christmas Eve but still 11
03:56to 12 Celsius from the top to the tail of the country. So yeah, it's turning mild, it's
04:03turning windy, it's turning grey but actually there'll be some dry weather around for Christmas
04:09Day and into Boxing Day certainly away from the far north-west. Bye bye.