A warm front will be responsible for bringing heavy outbreaks of rain to southwestern parts of the UK, this reaching northern Ireland. Fairly dry everywhere else, with cloudy skies along the east. Risk of thunderstorm development. – This is the Met Office UK Weather forecast for the evening of 01/05/24. Bringing you today’s weather forecast is Aidan McGivern.
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00:00 Hi there. A noisy night, a weather ahead for some southern parts of the UK. Outbreaks of
00:05 heavy rain and in some places thunderstorms. A complex pattern across much of Europe at
00:11 the moment. We've got an area of low pressure sitting to the west of the UK. That brought
00:14 a weather front and some persistent rain to western parts of the country on Tuesday. That
00:19 weather front through Wednesday has weakened but it's still there, dividing cooler air
00:24 to the south west with this warm plume coming up from central Europe and arriving into the
00:30 UK from the east during the rest of Wednesday and into Thursday. And here's that weather
00:35 front. It becomes rejuvenated once again as that warm plume arrives from the near continent.
00:41 And as a result, the old frontal boundary, this area of cloud and rain, becomes more
00:46 widespread. The rain area blossoms through the evening to affect south west Scotland,
00:51 into Northern Ireland, western parts of England and Wales. And there'll be some heavy outbreaks
00:55 of rain for a time in these areas. The focus after midnight is across southern parts of
01:00 the country with not only that heavy rain across south Wales into the south west of
01:04 England but some lively thunderstorms potentially arriving from the continent to affect other
01:10 southern parts of the UK and into the Midlands. As far as rainfall accumulations are concerned,
01:17 some significant accumulations in a 12-hour period, so from 10pm to 10am across south
01:23 Wales and the south west in places 25 to up to 50mm of rainfall, much of this falling
01:30 in a short period of time. But you can also see this speckled nature of the rainfall through
01:34 the Midlands into central and southern parts of England and that just shows the hit and
01:40 miss nature of any thunderstorms that develop. And in some places, very little rainfall,
01:45 in others rather a lot, 50mm or more in a few hours if you're affected by the thunderstorms.
01:51 Now I wouldn't take this too literally, this shows the progression of lightning overnight
01:56 but it just gives an indication that the thunderstorms are likely to move up from the continent to
02:00 affect southern and then central parts of the UK into the Midlands, into mid Wales by
02:07 mid morning on Thursday before easing away. These thunderstorms are going to be hit and
02:11 miss, where they occur there's that risk of frequent lightning and hail as well as torrential
02:16 downpours but not everywhere in this region we'll see the thunderstorms. We'll have to
02:21 watch and see how these develop over the continent and arrive in the UK overnight. As far as
02:27 the rest of the UK is concerned, much quieter for northern England and Scotland overnight,
02:31 the rain also easing for northern Ireland by the end of the night with a lot of cloud
02:35 here. There'll be low cloud arriving into the north east of England but for much of
02:39 Scotland, especially towards the north and west, clear skies will prevail so a fresh
02:43 feel on Thursday morning but that's where the sunniest place will be in the UK, some
02:48 decent sunny spells for Cumbria into the likes of Lancashire and north Wales as well. But
02:54 we've still got that rain and any thunderstorms remaining across southern and central parts
03:01 of the UK, slowly drifting their way north westwards. Most of the thunderstorms diminishing
03:06 through the day but still outbreaks of rain affecting Wales and the south west and still
03:10 the potential for some lively downpours through parts of north Wales into northern England
03:15 and the Midlands as well. Northern Ireland, northern England, Scotland mostly dry but
03:20 significant temperature contrast, truly remarkable for some places on Thursday afternoon. Now,
03:27 some parts of eastern Scotland with the Haar could experience just 12 Celsius. Other parts
03:34 of Scotland towards the west could get up to 23 Celsius. Likewise, north west England
03:40 into the Midlands, East Anglia where we get some sunshine 20 up to 23 Celsius possible.
03:45 Much cooler where we've got the outbreaks of rain continuing across south Wales and
03:50 the south west 13 or 14 Celsius. So these big temperature contrasts across the country
03:55 depending where you've got the low cloud or the sunshine or those outbreaks of rain continuing
04:00 and the rain area, that frontal boundary continues to move northwards on Thursday night. So outbreaks
04:08 of rain really persisting across parts of Wales into parts of central southern England.
04:12 Further showers coming along for East Anglia but for northern England, Scotland, northern
04:16 Ireland it's going to be mostly dry with clear spells but continued low cloud effect in north
04:22 east England as well as eastern Scotland. Towards the far south west clearing up and
04:27 drying up and so by Friday itself actually with that front moving north we've got an
04:33 area of cloud across northern Ireland, southern Scotland, northern and central England, parts
04:37 of Wales, anywhere further north than the M4 basically where there's the chance of some
04:44 outbreaks of rain and potentially some heavy downpours or thunderstorms. But north of the
04:50 central belt, sunny skies and south of the M4 brightening up with plenty of dry weather.
04:56 So a real mixture once again on Friday as far as the temperatures are concerned staying
05:01 particularly cool on that North Sea coast with the low cloud. But for western Scotland
05:06 the potential for high teens or even low twenties once again a little cooler down towards the
05:11 south despite the sunnier skies we're into a cooler air mass here, 15 or 16 Celsius.
05:18 Continued messy weather situations into the weekend so some outbreaks of rain, some showers
05:23 but also some warm sunshine at times as well.
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