This is the Met Office UK Weather forecast for the next 10 days 17/04/2024.
High pressure will begin to dominate the weather across the UK from this weekend. It will be much less wet than it's been during April so far but it won't be entirely dry. Bringing you this weekend’s weather forecast is Aidan McGivern.
High pressure will begin to dominate the weather across the UK from this weekend. It will be much less wet than it's been during April so far but it won't be entirely dry. Bringing you this weekend’s weather forecast is Aidan McGivern.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Hello and welcome to the Metal Viz 10-day trend. It's been a remarkably wet start to
00:05 April following a wet March and a wet winter. We've talked so much about low pressure during
00:10 recent weeks and months we might have forgotten what high pressure looks like. But this is
00:16 an area of high pressure and it's heading our way for the weekend. But before we get
00:22 to the weekend, one last area of low pressure will squeeze in ahead of that high to bring
00:28 some outbreaks of rain into Scotland. First thing Thursday and that rain will topple
00:34 south into northern England and north Wales by the afternoon. Ahead of the rain, some
00:38 sunshine still lingering across southern parts on Thursday afternoon, feeling quite pleasant
00:43 with 15 Celsius there in the south but feeling less than pleasant I think further north where
00:48 the wind and the rain tend to stick around through much of Thursday afternoon. Some brighter
00:53 spells for Northern Ireland, mostly dry here, 12 Celsius. The rain continues on its journey
00:59 southwards on Thursday night but it tends to fizzle away as it pushes south and it is
01:04 followed by showers, blustery showers as the wind picks up from the north-northwest. Of
01:08 course with the wind in place on Friday morning it's going to be a generally frost free start
01:13 but it's not going to feel warm on Friday because of that wind coming from the north-northwest
01:18 especially down the North Sea coast where the wind will be strongest. Gales in the North
01:22 Sea, along the coast, that strong wind making it feel fairly cold, 11-12 Celsius at best.
01:29 Further west, the wind not quite as strong, some sunny spells coming through for western
01:33 parts mostly dry, 15 Celsius. But, well there will be a few showers developing, most likely
01:40 east Midlands, east Anglia and the south-east during the middle part of the day. They disappear
01:46 overnight and then we've got high pressure moving in, that high moving in from the west
01:51 will dominate things throughout the weekend to bring much more settled weather, not entirely
01:57 dry nor entirely sunny nor entirely warm. There are some regional differences to talk
02:04 about this weekend but it's certainly going to bring a welcome relief from all the very
02:09 wet weather we've seen through April so far. Nevertheless, there will be some weather fronts
02:14 toppling in over the top of that high and this one in particular will bring some outbreaks
02:18 of light rain to the far north of Scotland, Orkney and Shetland on Saturday itself. Highs
02:22 of 8 Celsius there for Shetland, 11 for Stornoway. Elsewhere, much sunnier conditions prevail
02:29 throughout Saturday, bit of a chill in the air first thing, a frost in sheltered western
02:34 parts but by the afternoon the sunshine will feel very pleasant. Whatever the temperatures
02:40 are saying in that sunshine with lighter winds compared with Friday, it's going to feel lovely
02:46 I suspect after all the wet weather we've seen recently. Nevertheless, there will be
02:50 some variable amounts of cloud coming into eastern and northern parts with those weather
02:55 fronts and the weather front in the far north on Saturday tends to topple over the high
02:59 and come down the North Sea to bring some light outbreaks of rain to eastern parts of
03:04 the country on Sunday, especially later in the day and an increase in cloud cover towards
03:11 the east but will keep some sunny spells going towards the west and with that sunshine and
03:15 with light winds in the west, highs of 16, 17, could even get 18 Celsius somewhere like
03:21 western Scotland, western parts of Northern Ireland. That's going to feel very pleasant
03:25 indeed compared with the weather this year so far. This shows the 24 hour rainfall totals
03:30 throughout Saturday. White means no rainfall expected and that covers most of the UK but
03:37 the outbreaks of light rain that I mentioned in the north of Scotland showing up there
03:41 and some light outbreaks of rain for parts of East Anglia. Not very much really, the
03:45 lowest colour there on the key and the lowest colour also more prevalent across the far
03:52 north as well as eastern parts and central parts of the UK on Sunday. This is light and
03:57 patchy rain that could just spread its way slowly westwards as the weather fronts, those
04:03 weak fronts topple in from the north and north west. Now, there will also be an east-west
04:09 split in temperatures this weekend, especially on Sunday with above average temperatures
04:16 expected across parts of central and western Scotland as I mentioned, 17, 18 Celsius and
04:22 western parts of Northern Ireland as well. That's more than 3 degrees above average.
04:27 More than 3 degrees below average though for parts of eastern England because we've got
04:32 this north-easterly airflow and temperatures limited to 11 to 13 Celsius. So, feeling cool
04:39 in the wind off that North Sea in the east, feeling warm with light winds towards the
04:45 north west in any sunny spells and a similar temperature pattern on Monday. That easterly
04:52 wind picks up a bit more into the east of England so feeling quite fresh on the North
04:57 Sea coast but feeling quite pleasant I think across western parts of the UK where we've
05:02 got temperatures up to 16 or 17 Celsius or so. This is what the jet stream is doing on
05:07 Monday. It's sort of slicing central and eastern parts of the UK in two and really it's in
05:14 this area that we're likely on Monday to see some showers, that jet stream causing some
05:20 rising air in the atmosphere. But further north west we're closer to higher pressure.
05:25 That higher pressure though is starting to ebb away slightly from the UK. It's doing
05:31 something we call retrogressions. So, normally weather systems move from west to east. This
05:37 one's moving east to west. It's moving towards the north west of the UK and to explain why
05:42 we've got to rewind the clock and head over to the other side of the Atlantic on Friday
05:48 and this is how things are looking. Now, this is the stage at which we've got the high pressure
05:52 to the west of the UK moving in, moving eastwards into the UK and that's because of this dip
05:59 in the jet stream, what we call a trough and that's helping to push the western side of
06:05 the high upwards and extend it across the UK. But then that trough by Sunday tends to
06:13 cut off and become detached from the main flow of the jet stream which you can see over
06:17 North America there. That's going to become the main driving force and with this southward,
06:25 south southerly flow of the jet stream coming out of North America that's going to build
06:30 pressure further west across the Atlantic. So, as you can see it's this pulse in the
06:35 jet stream here that tends to rise pressure to the north west of the UK instead of over
06:41 the UK and that's where we end up for Monday the 22nd of April, higher pressure to the
06:47 north west. And that weather pattern holds out into Tuesday. This is 84% probability,
06:55 high pressure close to Iceland in between Scotland and Iceland there with a generally
07:01 light to moderate northeast of the airflow across the UK, similar conditions to Monday.
07:07 Chance of a few showers towards the south and southeast, chance of some decent sunny
07:12 spells here and there but variable amounts of cloud and temperatures close to average.
07:18 And this is for Thursday, this is the most likely weather pattern. This is the second
07:23 most likely and this is the third most likely but they're all showing the same sort of theme,
07:28 higher pressure towards the north west of the UK and easterly or northerly airflow across
07:34 the country and plenty of settled weather, much less rain than we've seen recently but
07:39 not entirely dry because we'll still see some showers affecting eastern and southeastern
07:44 parts of the UK at times. And as far as the temperatures are concerned,
07:49 well, there's a bit of uncertainty about this aspect of the forecast. This shows the temperature
07:54 anomalies through next week from the Met Office output and it's suggesting most of the country
08:00 will be slightly above average as far as temperatures are concerned, but there's a bit of a cold
08:04 indication there for eastern parts which you'd expect with an east or northeasterly wind.
08:10 Now this is the output from the European model and it shows below average temperatures throughout
08:15 next week. And what we think is this discrepancy between the models is due to cloud cover.
08:20 So with the Met Office model it's showing up a bit more cloud we think for next week
08:25 and therefore overnight temperatures are less low. Whereas the European model has clearer
08:31 skies and a higher chance of overnight frosts in places across the UK, hence the below average
08:38 temperatures. But I suspect it will be a bit of a mix of the two. There will be some clear
08:42 spells, variable amounts of cloud at times, especially across western parts. The skies
08:47 will be clear enough and the winds will be light enough overnight to lead to a touch
08:50 of frost in places. But by day of course with some sunny spells and an increasingly strong
08:56 sun it's going to feel pleasant enough with temperatures in the mid-teens in the west
09:00 but limited a bit more along the North Sea coast. So temperatures not far from average
09:06 is what I'm getting at but could see some overnight frosts whilst conversely daytime
09:10 in the sunshine feeling very pleasant. Now this shows a wider view of the temperature
09:16 and this is really important to explain why next week's pattern is lasting so long. Why
09:23 it's so similar throughout the week and potentially longer than that. This shows a polar view,
09:28 so this is the North Pole, there's the UK and much of the rest of Europe. This shows
09:32 the European model output for next week. Cold air over much of Europe but we've got these
09:39 warm blobs. We've got one here over North America just to the east of the Rockies. We've
09:44 got another one here over Asia just to the east of the Urals and one to the east of the
09:49 Himalayas. So we've got these three well-defined warm anomalies and they coincide with three
09:57 well-defined ridges in the atmosphere. This shows the pressure anomaly at around about
10:02 18,000 feet above sea level and over North America we've got this higher than normal
10:08 pressure and just to the east of the Urals and just to the east of the Himalayas, higher
10:13 than normal pressure. One, two, three. We've also got another two, one in the Atlantic
10:19 and one in the Pacific. So there's five of these ridges, something we call a wave number
10:24 five pattern and this is quite significant as we move into spring and summer because
10:29 it can be self-sustaining. When we see these wave number five patterns develop we tend
10:36 to think they're going to stick around for some time. The reason they're self-sustaining
10:39 is because when you get higher pressure over these continental areas to the east of higher
10:45 ground and you get an increasingly strong sun at this time if you're heating that area
10:49 then the high pressure as temperatures rise can become self-sustaining and this high to
10:57 the east of the Rockies as well as the one to the east of the Urals and the east of the
11:00 Himalayas becomes quite strong and sits there and you get a corresponding trough or low
11:06 pressure just to the east of that and a corresponding ridge to the east of that and so this whole
11:12 pattern then becomes stuck. What it means for us is for next week we've got this higher
11:18 pressure to the northwest of the UK that becomes stuck because of the potentially self-sustaining
11:24 pattern that we've got over North America with the higher pressure to the east of the
11:30 Rockies and those higher temperatures to the east of the Rockies really helping to sustain
11:35 that higher pressure for some time. So when we look beyond next week and the similar sort
11:43 of chart here showing higher than normal pressure into the start of May over North America,
11:49 a corresponding lower than normal pressure over the Atlantic and then higher than normal
11:54 pressure to the northwest of the UK. So once this pattern develops this wave number 5 pattern
11:59 can become self-sustaining and it can lead to certain weather systems becoming stuck
12:04 in the spring and summer months. And so just to give you an indication of what that might
12:09 mean for our weather at the end of April, this is the last day of April and we've got
12:14 a similar setup, an area of high pressure dominating things to the west or northwest
12:18 of the UK. Its position will of course determine the precise weather we get from place to place
12:24 in the UK and that at the moment is still open to doubt whether it's a little bit further
12:30 northwest and it allows showers to come in from the continent or from the east or whether
12:34 it's more centred over the UK as in these scenarios. So those will be the main uncertainties
12:39 as we end April. But either way, the second half of April, almost dropped it, second half
12:46 of April looks significantly less wet compared with the first half. Bye bye.
12:51 [BLANK_AUDIO]