This is the Met Office UK Weather forecast for the next 10 days 16/04/2025.
After a bit more rain through the Easter weekend, more settled weather should return.
Bringing you this week’s 10 Day Trend is Alex Burkill.
After a bit more rain through the Easter weekend, more settled weather should return.
Bringing you this week’s 10 Day Trend is Alex Burkill.
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00:00If you watched my 10-day trend last week, you'll have heard me talking about the change, the transition from the fine, settled, often sunny weather that we had through the start of April to something more changeable, a bit wetter.
00:12That has now happened, and so the question is, when are we going to see the return of something more settled?
00:17Well, if we look at our probabilistic pressure trend, and remember, blues indicate lower pressure being more dominant, and reds indicate higher pressure,
00:25and you can see there's been fairly good agreement amongst the model runs through the last few days that around the middle of next week,
00:33that transition, that change, that return to something a bit more settled is quite likely to occur.
00:39Also worth bearing in mind that actually this time last week I talked of the return of something more settled as we go deeper into April,
00:45but that the time that it was going to occur kept getting pushed back and pushed back,
00:50and whilst that was the case, actually, well, in recent days, it doesn't look like it's going to continue to be pushed back.
00:56So actually, I have a better confidence in the story that we are going to see high pressure returning
01:01and something a bit more settled towards the middle to end of next week.
01:05But let's look at the details and starting off with the pressure pattern across us currently.
01:10Low pressure has brought some heavy, thundery rain across some parts already.
01:13It is pushing its way northwards as we go through the rest of Wednesday and overnight into Thursday.
01:18So we start Thursday morning with quite a bit of clouds and rain across northern parts,
01:23but clearer, drier weather towards the south.
01:26And so I wouldn't be surprised if we saw some mist and fog patches first thing on Thursday morning.
01:30Otherwise, then, a fair few showers developing through Thursday itself.
01:34Some of them could be a bit heavy, particularly towards the south or even across Northern Ireland,
01:38a fair few showers and some on the heavy side.
01:41Across Scotland, the rain is going to be breaking up, turning a bit more showery as we go through the day,
01:46but a fair bit of cloud lingering here elsewhere.
01:49There should be some decent sunny spells breaking out in between the showers.
01:52In fact, across parts of northern England should stay largely dry and a good deal of sunshine on offer here.
01:57And with that sunshine and temperatures a degree or so, perhaps higher than earlier on in the week,
02:02highs around 17 or 18 Celsius, it's not going to feel too bad.
02:06Wind's generally light, though a bit more of a breeze towards the north.
02:09Then later, as we go through Thursday overnight into Friday, most of the showers are actually going to die out,
02:15perhaps a few showers lingering across the north of Scotland,
02:18but most places having a lot of dry, clear weather through much of the night.
02:22But weather system, an area of low pressure is pushing in from the southwest,
02:26and so across Northern Ireland, parts of Wales, southwest England,
02:29it's going to turn cloudier as we go through the early hours of Friday morning.
02:32The winds will pick up and there's going to be some heavy rain pushing its way in as well.
02:36Further east as we go through Friday, staying drier, yes, it will turn a bit cloudier through the day
02:41and there will be a few outbreaks of rain here and there,
02:43but it's towards the west where we're going to have the more unsettled weather,
02:46the strongest winds and the heaviest rain.
02:48In terms of winds, we're talking gusts of around 30, 35 miles per hour,
02:52so nothing exceptional, but nonetheless a blustery picture.
02:55In the east, it's still going to actually feel relatively warm in any of that sunshine.
02:59Temperatures are similar to Thursday, maybe a degree or so down for some places,
03:03but further west, with the cloud, the wind and the rain, it's going to feel markedly unpleasant.
03:09But let's look at those rainfall totals.
03:11I did say that we're going to see some heavy rain pushing its way in.
03:14Behind me, I have our 12-hour totals as we run through Good Friday,
03:18and you can see across parts of Northern Ireland, they're going to build up as we go through the morning,
03:22and then across Wales and southwest England as we go through the morning and into the afternoon,
03:26that's when we're likely to see the heaviest rain.
03:28There's potential for 25, 30 millimetres, perhaps, which isn't an exceptional amount,
03:35especially because we've had a lot of dry weather so far this month.
03:39But worth bearing in mind, a lot of people will be travelling on Good Friday
03:43because it is the long Easter weekend,
03:45and we have seen some fairly heavy rain over the last couple of days.
03:49Wednesday, for example, saw some very heavy rain in the southwest,
03:52so the ground will be quite saturated, so we could see some localised impacts.
03:56A bit of travel disruption and also a little bit of flooding as well.
04:00So Good Friday definitely looks like the wettest day of the long weekend for western parts,
04:06drier further east, but as we go through further into the weekend,
04:10we're going to see the low pressure system that brings the unsettled weather in the west
04:14actually pushes a little bit further southwards as we go through Saturday.
04:17We'll still feel the influence of it for a little while longer.
04:20There'll be some outbreaks of showery rain across western, southwestern parts in particular,
04:25and a bit more cloud here, and still a bit of a breeze, albeit not as strong as on Good Friday.
04:31But further north and east, actually a good deal of fine and often sunny weather to be had,
04:35and not feeling too bad in that fine sunny weather either.
04:39Then as we go later on towards Easter Sunday, and that low clears further southwards,
04:44and so actually, for many places, Easter Sunday looks like a fairly decent day.
04:49A lot of dry weather around if you're planning an Easter egg hunt, and particularly across some central,
04:55perhaps eastern parts, a good deal of sunshine as well.
04:57The wind's a bit cloudier further west because you're closer to low pressure.
05:02Worth bearing in mind there could be some cloud coming in from the North Sea as we go through later on Easter day,
05:07so a bit more cloud here.
05:08But yeah, a lot of fine weather, perhaps the driest day of the long weekend for many,
05:12because there is then another area of low pressure that's tracking its way in,
05:17and this could be a relatively deep feature.
05:20This is the raw global model from the Met Office that I have behind me here,
05:24and this does bring a relatively deep air of low pressure pretty close to the UK,
05:29but it's not actually the most favoured solution at the moment.
05:32It's a bit of an outlier.
05:34I think we are likely to see an area of low pressure somewhere close to the UK,
05:39but if we look at our Ensemble models, they all put it in slightly different places.
05:43Most of them have that low a little bit further away from us than the Raw GM.
05:48As a result, the impacts from it are likely to be a little bit less,
05:52and most of them have it much less deep.
05:55The Raw GM had it around 982, 984 hectopascals, which is fairly deep for this time of year.
06:00Meanwhile, I really don't think it's actually going to be that intense of a feature.
06:04So there will be, or there's likely to be, low pressure somewhere close to us around the west or southwest of the UK.
06:11So western, southwestern parts on Easter Monday likely to have some wetter, cloudier, perhaps even blustery weather,
06:17but it's probably not going to be as unsettled as the raw model is suggesting.
06:23Then, so the most likely regime that we're suggesting for next Monday is for lower pressure.
06:30For Easter Monday, this is lower pressure somewhere towards the west, southwest.
06:33And so, yeah, there will be some unsettled weather.
06:35But worth bearing in mind, northern and eastern parts, actually not, well, northern parts not faring too badly
06:41the further you are away from the low pressure.
06:44Still, with this wind direction, you would expect some low cloud to be coming in from eastern parts,
06:49or for eastern parts, so a bit cloudier here.
06:51Perhaps the best of the sunshine on Easter Monday will be across parts of the northwest.
06:56Further southwest, closer you are to the low.
06:58A bit cloudier, a bit wetter, a bit blustery too.
07:00This paints a pessimistic picture when it comes to rainfall amounts.
07:04I think many places, particularly towards the north, will actually be mostly dry.
07:07But if we run through next week, looking at the most likely setups, and if we dart ahead to Tuesday,
07:13and we're starting to see higher pressure from the north pushing its way southwards.
07:17I mentioned the fact that we're likely to see this transition to high pressure becoming more dominant
07:21as we go through next week, and it's this high pressure pushing its way south.
07:25And as we go through then towards Wednesday, and that's becoming even more dominant.
07:30And worth bearing in mind the wind direction that is coming round this high,
07:34and so it's kind of dragging in our air from the north, northeast.
07:38Not an especially warm direction at this time of year.
07:41So although we're likely to see the weather turning more settled, drier, perhaps even sunnier,
07:47as we go through the middle of next week,
07:49it's not necessarily going to turn that much warmer, particularly by nights.
07:53Could be some chilly nights still to come if we have some clear, more settled weather,
07:57and this relatively cool air pushing its way.
07:59And by day at this time of year, you know, end of April,
08:02you would expect some decent sunshine to make it feel pleasantly warm.
08:06But yeah, just be aware there still could be some chilly nights.
08:09Then if we go through the rest of the weekend, yeah, Thursday and Friday,
08:15when it appears high pressure likely to be sitting across us.
08:18It's worth bearing in mind we're only going with around a 19-20% chance of this actual setup occurring,
08:24but nonetheless, many of the models in agreement that we're likely to see higher pressure somewhere near the UK.
08:30Now, I say somewhere near the UK because exactly where it's sitting plays a big role in a couple of things.
08:35I think the general story for more fine settled weather looks, well, fairly good agreement,
08:41but exactly where it sits plays a role in the temperatures that we're going to get
08:45because of where we're dragging in our air.
08:47I notice still a bit of a northly flow across things, so still a bit of a cooler air across us if this comes off.
08:54But if the high was just in a slightly different position,
08:56then we could be dragging in our air from the east or to the south,
08:59and so it could be that bit warmer.
09:01And also the position of the high will play a role in where we see the greatest cloud amounts,
09:05like we saw through earlier in April.
09:07Although there was high pressure nearby, some places didn't always have the fine sunny weather.
09:13Then, as we go through later next week, and as Saturday, again, likely to have high pressure still across us,
09:18and then by Sunday, the high changes slightly drift away towards the northwest,
09:22though this is only a 15% chance.
09:24We're looking awfully far ahead at this point, but still, it doesn't look especially wet, as you can see.
09:30Then, the one thing that I did want to point out to you,
09:34I mentioned the fact that the position of the high pressure as we go through next week
09:38will be quite important in terms of cloud amount and also our temperature.
09:42If we look at our ECMWF members, and these tell us different positions for where the high could be,
09:49and they're all kind of different.
09:51Most of them going with high pressure somewhere towards the UK or around the UK,
09:56but exactly where it's sitting, this is for next Thursday, is still all to play for.
10:01So, the detail isn't quite there yet, but I'm fairly confident that we are going to see higher pressure returning.
10:09I say fairly confident, I'll come on to that in a second.
10:11First, let's look at our meteograms for our capital cities.
10:14And the thing that we need to bear in mind,
10:15there's nothing particularly standing out in terms of no major peaks,
10:20no major dips or anything like that.
10:22The median looks actually pretty close to average through the next two weeks.
10:27But actually, as we go through the middle to end of next week,
10:30there's relatively large spread,
10:32and that goes in line with the idea that the position of that high pressure
10:36is really going to play a big role in how warm it's going to be,
10:40both by day and also by night.
10:42Then I said, I'm fairly confident about the low or high pressure returning.
10:48If we look at our confidence index and the reds indicating that it's actually lower than average confidence
10:52through much of the next two weeks,
10:54worth bearing in mind, Tuesday, Wednesday time,
10:57that's kind of when it's lowest compared to average.
10:59This hash line is the average.
11:02As you can see, confidence does drop off the further we go ahead.
11:05It always or generally does.
11:07But yeah, around Tuesday, Wednesday time,
11:09that's when we're likely to have the, well, that's when we have the least amount of confidence
11:14compared to average,
11:15because exactly when we see that transition from the more changeable weather we have at the moment
11:20to the high pressure that I'm expecting to return through the next week,
11:23there is still some question marks.
11:25But actually, as we go towards the end of next week and the weekend,
11:28after we get closer to our average confidence,
11:31worth bearing in mind at this time of year,
11:33it's quite normal for us to have slightly lower than average confidence
11:36because spring is a notoriously difficult time when it comes to forecasting the weather.
11:42But yeah, exactly when we see that change,
11:45still all to play for a little bit,
11:47but a bit more confidence in the fact that,
11:51particularly towards the end of next week,
11:52something a bit more settled is likely to have hit.
11:55It may have hit a few days earlier.
11:57Who knows?
11:57We'll see.
11:58We'll see how it all plays out.
12:00But if you want a little bit more in-depth look at what we can expect
12:03through the long Easter weekend,
12:05then do check out our weekend forecast,
12:07which will be available on Thursday.
12:09I'll be doing that,
12:10looking at whether or not you'll be able to go Easter egg hunting
12:12or maybe if you're traveling somewhere.
12:14Otherwise, I'll see you again soon.
12:15Bye-bye.