This is an in-depth Met Office UK Weather forecast for the next week and beyond 22/04/2025 – High pressure is set to follow after a changeable week. Bringing you this deep dive is Met Office meteorologist Alex Burkill.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Hello! Happy Tuesday! Happy Earth Day! Welcome to this week's Deep Dive. I'm Alex Mercule,
00:06meteorologist and presenter here at the Met Office, and as we do every Tuesday, I'm coming
00:10to you from our headquarters here in Exeter. And as with every week, if you enjoy anything
00:15that I talk about today, make sure you hit the like button, share it with anyone else
00:18who you think might be interested in it, and do leave a comment, because I will be answering
00:23some of those questions later on. And we do also answer some of the questions in our Weather
00:27Studio Live, which will be back this Friday with Honor and Aidan. We took a week off because
00:31of Good Friday, but yes, our Weather Studio Live is back this week. But we're here for
00:36the Deep Dive. What do I have to talk about? Well, we're over halfway through both spring
00:40and also through April, so I thought I'd take a little bit of a look back, and also, of
00:45course, a look ahead. So let's start that. First of all, I want to look through the weather
00:48we can expect through the next few days, and a bit beyond. I don't want to go into too
00:52much detail, because Honor will have the 10-day trend available on Wednesdays, so I don't
00:58want to tread on her toes too much. But nonetheless, let's have a little look. And currently, we
01:03have an area of low pressure just to the west-northwest of the UK. We're already seeing some of that
01:08rain pushing across parts of Northern Ireland. And that rain associated with that front is
01:14going to continue to make its way eastwards. And so as we go through this evening and overnight,
01:18we're going to see the cloud building, the rain pushing its way. And I'm going to zoom
01:21in a little bit and maybe just scroll back a little bit so we can see that heavy rain coming
01:25through. But yes, some fairly wet weather pushing its way through as we go through this
01:30evening and overnight. And then tomorrow, we see that eventually clearing away towards
01:36the east-southeast. Worth bearing in mind, if I just scroll back, that actually large parts
01:41of Scotland, down the eastern-northeastern side of England as well, not really seeing much,
01:46if any, of that rain pushing through. So staying largely dry here. But for other places, it does
01:52look pretty wet as that pushes in. So how wet? Well, let's look at some of our rainfall totals. And
01:58here I have our 24-hour rainfall totals. If I just run these through as we go through Wednesday,
02:04and we will see a couple of things. So yeah, as we go through Wednesday, we can see some pretty high
02:08totals across this kind of southwestern half of the UK, if you will, across Northern Ireland,
02:14Wales, southern, southwestern England. That's where we're going to see the heaviest rain. We're
02:19talking quite widely in this area. 10 to 15 millimetres, locally 20 to 40, perhaps over the
02:25high ground of Northern Ireland, the Morns, we could see around 50 millimetres. Some models hinted
02:30at around 60 to 80. I think they're overdoing it a little bit. So I think the totals that I just said,
02:36more likely. So that's pretty wet. And there will be some blustery winds, but we shouldn't see too
02:42many impacts. That being said, a lot of that rain is going to be coming in just three to six hours.
02:47So a bit of surface flooding is possible. And as well as that, because of some of this coming
02:53through in time for morning rush hour, depending on where you are, that could cause some disruption.
02:58So do take care on the roads if you're heading out early. There could be some issues. We haven't
03:01got a warning issued at the moment. Not expecting any, but nonetheless, it is going to be a pretty wet
03:07picture as we go through this evening, overnight and early tomorrow. But thereafter, what happens?
03:13Well, let's get rid of the jet stream. It's not what I want to show at the moment. And if we just
03:17dart ahead to the early hours of Thursday, that's Wednesday evening. But if we run, oh, sorry,
03:25Wednesday, I meant that's what confused me earlier. As we go through Wednesday, as we go through the end
03:30of Wednesday, and you can see, well, through the morning, through lunchtime, it clears away towards
03:34the east, southeast. Then behind it, there's just a scattering of showers following in behind.
03:39And then overnight Wednesday into Thursday, if I just pause it a little bit further on, let's go to
03:45Thursday morning, and we end up in a bit of a cold. So that's when we have the system that pushed through
03:51towards the east of us, another system, low pressure, waiting out towards the west. And then instead
03:56over the UK, we have a bit of a ridge, and so a quieter period. So Wednesday night into Thursday,
04:01it's looking pretty quiet, could be a bit chilly, first thing Thursday morning. But we're in between
04:07those systems. And then through Thursday itself, actually, a fairly decent day, a few showers here
04:13and there, but on the whole, largely fine. Otherwise, then our attention then turns to another system
04:20that's coming in from the west. So later Thursday, more wet weather pushing its way into Northern Ireland,
04:25and then the system's likely to track its way in as we go into Friday. But there are some question
04:30marks about this system. Our model, the Met Office Global model, which is the one that I have behind
04:36me here, that's a little bit too quick, I think, with how it progresses across the UK with this
04:42system that goes through on Friday. So I think if we looked at EC, it has everything a little bit
04:47further west, it's a bit slower bringing that system in. And so I think this rain really is more
04:54likely to be a bit more of a kind of Northern Ireland, Western Scotland, perhaps just about fringing
04:59into the far west of England and Wales as we go through Friday evening. Most places actually
05:03staying dry through much of Friday. Also worth bearing in mind, Friday morning could be even
05:08chillier than Thursday morning for some of us too. But back to Friday, eventually this system will push
05:14through. But similar to how it's not quite got the position right, I think our model's overdoing the
05:20rain amounts as it pushes eastwards across the UK as we go through into the weekend. I think really
05:24it's likely to break up quite a lot. And so I think some eastern parts aren't going to see a huge
05:29amount of that rain as it pushes through overnight Friday into Saturday. And so it's largely dry.
05:36But then that clears through and then there's another system out in the west. And again,
05:40the position of this, I think, is a little bit too far east. So once more, I think as we go through
05:46more so into Sunday, the next system comes through and we're going to see some wet weather towards the
05:52northwest of the UK. How much of that pushes its way across eastern parts and towards the south?
05:58Not really that sure. I think we're actually going to stay largely dry, but towards the northwest. So
06:02there's the potential that we could see both those two bands of rain, the one Friday into Saturday and
06:08then another one on Sunday pushing across. But really, I think a lot of it's perhaps going to be a
06:13bit further west-southwest than some of the model data that I have behind me may suggest. Still a little
06:19bit all to play for. One thing that I'm a bit more confident about, though, is high pressure
06:23towards the south-southeast. And that plays a part in the weather that we can expect next week. But
06:28before then, I just wanted to have a little look at our temperatures. And I think that's the wrong
06:33one. Let's get this up. And if I pick somewhere towards the south, for example, and here we have
06:39our max and our min temperatures as we go through the next few days, that doesn't quite show. There we go.
06:44That's a little bit better, more what I wanted to hint at. And you can see two things, really. After
06:49a little bit of a dip as we go through the middle of this week, our temperatures start to climb again
06:54as we go through towards the weekend and beginning of next week. So more likely to get into the low
06:5920s. But also look at our overnight temperatures. We're only talking a degree or so. But yeah,
07:04Thursday night and more so, oh sorry, Thursday morning and more so Friday morning do look to be a
07:09little chilly, a little fresh compared to some of the other nights this week. Nothing extraordinary.
07:14If we just look further north, just for example, and the trend's similar, really. A gradual rise in
07:20our temperatures as we go through this week and also a slight dip in our overnight temperatures,
07:27both Thursday and Friday morning. But what happens thereafter? And like I said, I don't want to
07:33go too much on to what Honor will be talking about in her 10-day trend tomorrow. But just to capture it,
07:42and these are our various members. And when you take them all together, they show the most likely
07:48setups that we're going to see. And if I dart to this time next week, say, let's go a little bit
07:54further ahead. Here we go. Here's next Tuesday. Actually, let's not go that far. Let's go to
08:02Sunday. Let's go to Monday. And so the most likely setup is this one in the left-hand side of the
08:10screen. And it has that system that I mentioned coming in on Sunday, so pushing its way into
08:16northwestern parts. But actually the high pressure across mainland Europe starts to build back in and
08:23feed its way in across the UK. And that would do two things. That would settle our weather down
08:28and actually bring in some more warm air, which is why we're starting to see temperatures rising
08:32as we go through into next week. And we're likely to continue to see them doing so.
08:37Worth bearing in mind that the second and third most likely scenarios for this next Monday have the
08:45frontal stuff towards the northwest of the UK a little bit more across the country. So the high is a
08:49little bit less developed. But nonetheless, that's a slightly more favoured chance at the moment.
08:55Then as we go through and if we look towards Tuesday, I've gone too far ahead. Now we're looking
09:01at Wednesday. But the most likely setup and even the second, even the third is not too dissimilar.
09:08The most and second most likely setups have high pressure well and truly across the UK. So the high
09:13that was here has fed its way in and then become more dominant. So I think there's a reasonable chance.
09:19As we go through next week, there we are going to see high pressure becoming more dominant. We
09:23talked about this. If you watch my 10 day trend last week, I talked about it happening around the
09:28end of this week through this weekend. And I think it's been pushed back ever so slightly. But
09:33nonetheless, I think as we go through next week, we are going to see that or beginning of next week,
09:37we are going to see that high pressure pushing its way in. What happens thereafter? And that's where
09:42there are some question marks. I've darted ahead to next Saturday, but they tell the story quite nicely.
09:48The most likely will be at only 13% chance. They're not particularly high. We are looking
09:52several days away, 10, 11 days away by this point, but still has high pressure across the UK. So
10:02there's a reasonable chance that the high pressure that's likely to dominate early next week could
10:07stick around through much next week. And as we go into the beginning of May as well. However,
10:11there's also a reasonable chance, probably a similar amount of chance, to be honest,
10:16that some systems from the northwest could push their way in instead. And so we would see something
10:21a bit more changeable, particularly towards northern and western parts. All the time worth
10:26bearing in mind with this high that comes in, we could see some significant warmth across southern
10:31parts in particular. That's pretty likely early to middle of next week. We're talking low to mid 20s,
10:37that kind of thing with some settled weather. So feeling particularly fine to end April.
10:42And we could have some more fine, relatively warm weather as we go through into the beginning
10:47of May as well. But just some question marks as to exactly what's going to come in from the
10:51northwest. So either the high pressure will build and then stick around for a little while,
10:56or could build and then retreat back as some fronts push through. So a little bit all to play for.
11:01If we just, whilst we're on that topic, if we just look at our multi-model probabilistic pressure
11:06trend. And you'll no doubt have seen these before if you're a regular deep dive or 10-day trend
11:11viewer. But in case you haven't, the reds indicating that high pressure is more likely
11:17as we go through the next two weeks. And you can see really the transition from the neutral setup,
11:23the greens, to the high pressure was always indicated to be late this week. And as we go
11:29through this coming weekend. So although there's a weather system towards the northwest of the UK
11:33this weekend, the general pattern will be the high pressure that's coming its way in and
11:37fairly strong idea that that high pressure is going to be more dominant as we go through
11:42next week and perhaps even into the beginning of May, albeit the percentages start to drop down.
11:48It's a very red picture behind me. Previous model runs have all been in agreement that high pressure
11:53is going to be the dominant story as we head through the end of April and into the beginning of May.
11:58But yeah, still some question marks as to exactly how long it lasts.
12:01We'll have more about that on today, tomorrow's 10-day trend.
12:06What else did I want to talk about? Let's look globally quickly then,
12:10because there's some severe weather happening on the other side of the Atlantic. And if we dart ahead
12:15across parts of America, we've already seen some fatal flooding in parts of Oklahoma in recent days.
12:24And there's more heavy, thundery rain to come across parts of Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma still.
12:30Fortunately, the heaviest rain looks like it'll be a little bit further west compared to where we've
12:35already seen it. Particularly as we go through kind of Thursday and towards the end of the week,
12:39we are going to see some significant rainfall totals. We're talking 50 to 100 millimetres in just a few
12:46hours and some prolonged rain could lead to more than 200 millimetres in some places. Worth bearing in
12:51mind, in this part of America, the April average is only around 50 to 100 millimetres. So this is a
12:57substantial amount of rain. No wonder that we're going to see some further flooding. And this could
13:01cause some fairly disruptive, well, it's going to cause some disruption, could cause some major
13:06problems as well. It's not just the heavy rain that's going to cause some problems. Like I said,
13:10it's going to be thundery. And so we need to watch out for some large hail, also the risk of tornadoes.
13:16But I think it's the heavy rain that's most likely to cause some major impacts here.
13:21Back to the UK though. And as I mentioned at the start, we are now well over halfway through April
13:27and we are halfway through spring. So I just wanted to have a little gander, a little look at how we
13:33are doing statistics wise at this stage in the month. And this chart behind me looks at mean
13:38temperature through spring so far, and it's a cumulative chart. So it compares how we are for this
13:43stage of the month and so far through this month compared to previous records. The black line in
13:50the middle is our average based on the 1991 to 2020 data. The orange line at the top is the record.
13:55The blue line at the bottom is the record for the lowest. Orange at the top record for the warmest.
14:01And the dotted blue line is this current year with the orange shaded area showing that we are well
14:09above average for this stage in the month and have been really through, sorry, season, through this
14:15whole season. It's been significantly warmer than average. And actually, if we look just where we are,
14:21we're currently just about above the record for this stage in spring. Now, there is a lot of spring
14:28still to come. So you can't make too many bold statements. But technically, at this stage in
14:35spring, we haven't had a warmer first, like, what are we, 50 days of the season before since our
14:43records began. So it has been pretty warm indeed. Just to look at a similar chart, but this time for
14:48April, and it's a similar picture well above average, albeit nowhere near the record. The one thing
14:53that's worth bearing in mind is it's our maximum temperatures that have been so far above average,
14:59which have pushed us, when you look at spring, so close to or just that little bit above the record.
15:04If we look at our minimum temperatures, and here I have the minimum temperature chart for April,
15:08and actually our minimum temperatures through the last two, three weeks or so, they've been nothing
15:13really to write home about. We've had some colder spells. So even when we had the fine settled weather
15:18during the first week, two weeks of April, at this time of year, fine settled weather by night means
15:25it's going to turn quite chilly, unless you have some really warm air around us, which we didn't.
15:29So although it was pleasantly warm by day, it was a bit chilly overnight. And so that's why when we look
15:34at our minimum temperatures so far this month, they're pretty much close to average. Whereas our mean
15:39temperature and our maximum temperatures, they're way above, way above.
15:43What are we looking at rainfall wise? Oops, I've pressed the wrong button. And if we look similar
15:49chart, but this time looking our rainfall for spring so far, and you can see just how dry it's been
15:54through large chunks of March. That line is so flat, we had barely, barely any rain. And then again,
16:01we had a bit of rain and then another flat line through the first week or so of April. And then we've
16:07had a bit more unsettled weather recently, but well below the average line and not too far away,
16:13albeit not particularly close to the driest spring on record or dry spring for this point in this season
16:21on record. But if we look at our April and the first, the first 11 days, barely any rain. I think
16:28there was a little blip of rain around earlier on in the month, but barely any rain for the first 11
16:34days. And then yeah, last week, if you're on Easter holidays, you'll have no doubt been aware.
16:38They had some, we had some more unsettled weather that came through. And so it's well above the
16:45record now. I think the records, what's that about 16 or 17? Oops, I've darted back. Let's just get
16:50that chart back up. And the record, yeah, so we're, we've now, we're now nowhere near the record for
16:56driest April. But nonetheless, it is still significantly drier than average. We do have more wet weather coming
17:02through as we go through tonight and later on this week. So, you know, we're going to see some
17:07of those totals rising again, but I think at the end of the month, it is going to be drier than
17:12average. Then the last thing on the rainfall stats, I just wanted to highlight was the fact that it's
17:18really just been this chunk recently, which has brought some rain around effect. Good Friday in
17:23particular, the wettest day so far this April with a very wet day. I don't know what you were doing,
17:30but we were having a fence built and I felt sorry for the man building that because it was raining
17:35so heavily. Right, the last statistic that I wanted to look back at was our sunshine amounts. Here's
17:42our map for sunshine through the spring, but it doesn't paint that much of an interesting picture.
17:47So let's just look at April. And this map is comparing what we've seen so far through April to
17:52the average for the whole month. Now we're only three weeks in this data up to and including yesterday,
17:59the 21st, so the first three weeks of April compared to the whole month. And so we're less
18:05than three quarters of the way through, 70% at this stage. But some places have already seen
18:10significantly more than the average for the whole month. The UK as a whole seen 106% of the average
18:17for the whole month. So we've already had 6% more than the average, even though we still have
18:22another 30%, another 10 days left or whatever of the month still to go. In fact, some parts of
18:29Western Scotland have seen even more than that. So it has been very dry. It's also been very sunny,
18:35which I'm sure you're aware of, particularly across Western Scotland and down through parts of England
18:41as well. Largely sunny skies for many places here. Then what else did I want to talk about? I think
18:50the only thing I have left is to talk about the Lyrid meteor shower. So we get lots of meteor showers
18:57coming through the year. The Lyrid one, it's not the most dramatic of them. The Germanid one later
19:01on in the year has a few more meteor showers. But nonetheless, through its peak, you're looking at
19:07around 18 meteors coming through an hour. So a good chance of seeing something. And actually,
19:13whilst it appears from mid-April for a week or so, it's actually peaking around now. So the 22nd
19:21today is the peak. So tonight, more so Wednesday morning, that's when you have the greatest chance
19:26of seeing the Lyrid meteor shower. Now, meteor showers, particularly this one, what we have is
19:33there's a comet orbiting the sun. It's comet 1861 G1C, 1861 G1 Thatcher. And that's orbiting around the
19:42sun. And then behind it, it leaves a trail of dust particles. And it's as the earth that's also
19:46orbiting around the sun moves through that trail of dust particles. And then as those dust particles,
19:53they're not particularly big, but as they then come through the atmosphere, they burn up because,
19:58well, they're travelling so quickly. We're talking around 50 kilometres per second. So really fast.
20:06As a result, as they hit the air, it doesn't have enough time to move out of the way. And so
20:11it just compresses and then heats up and it burns. And so it gets to temperatures of around 1600
20:17Celsius. And so it becomes really hot, which is why we can see these lights coming through,
20:23or this light coming through, because it's the burning of those dust particles travelling so fast
20:27through our atmosphere. Now, most of them burn up through the atmosphere, but if they could reach
20:32the ground, and so then you could get a bit of meteorite arriving, but that's pretty unlikely.
20:36But nonetheless, it is a dramatic show. And a couple of things to bear in mind. So the Lyraid
20:44meteor shower gets its name from the Lyra constellation, because all the meteor showers get their name
20:50from the constellation where the the materials appear to emanate from where they the radiant point.
20:56But actually, the Lyraid meteor shower, it doesn't actually, its radiant point isn't around the Lyra
21:04constellation, it's actually slightly closer to the Hercules constellation. So maybe we really should
21:08rename it to the Herculid meteor shower. But anyway, but the Lyraid meteor shower, it's actually the oldest
21:16on record, there is, there's data going back to 687 BC in China when they first spotted it. And
21:23obviously, that was way before the night sky was mapped out the way that it is now. And so that's why it got
21:30its name as the the Lyraid meteor shower. It's very close to the Lyra, to the Lyra constellation,
21:35their neighbours Lyra and Hercules in the night sky. But what are the chances of seeing it? Well,
21:40let's have a little look. And if we go back to or go to the early hours of Wednesday morning,
21:45that's when you have the greatest chance, really, that's when it's going to be peaking.
21:49Fortunately, the moon is going to be below the horizon at this point. So that helps.
21:55Unfortunately, there is this big band of rain that I mentioned, and a lot of clouds and blustery winds
22:00in association with this. But once that rains come through, so across parts of South Wales, parts of
22:05the West country as well, there should be some clear sky, some dry weather around Northern
22:10Islands looking pretty cloudy. Also across this kind of swathe of central into southeastern England,
22:16it's going to be cloudy and wet. But also across parts of northeast England, maybe the tip of East
22:21Anglia, and across large chunks of Scotland, a good deal of clear weather here. So a reasonable chance,
22:27albeit Orkney, Shetland here, there's another front, maybe more so Shetland than Orkney,
22:32another front lingering here. So less good there. But a fair amount of the country actually has a
22:38reasonable chance of some clear skies. So if you do want to see it, the advice, yeah, go out during
22:43the early hours, settle down for around 20 minutes, maybe sit in a deck chair or garden chair,
22:48recline back, you want to look up around 60% above the horizon, and let your eyes settle to the
22:55darkness. Ideally, you're away from any artificial sources of light. And then just look. And like I
23:01say, there's around 18 an hour, and you should be able to catch on. They'll look like a shooting star.
23:06Obviously, it's not a star. Stars don't really move. And not particularly quickly anyway. It's these
23:13dust particles coming from the trail from a comet. And we see those meteorols then burning up through
23:19our atmosphere. Do let me know if you see any of these, the Lyra meteor shower tonight, we'd love to
23:25see any pictures that you take. Otherwise, any questions you've had about anything that I've said
23:29today, do put them in the comments. And I'll try to answer some of them either today or Aiden and Anna can
23:34answer them at the end of the week on Friday in our Weather Studio Live, which will be back at 12.15
23:39on our YouTube channel. As I mentioned already, Anna will be here with, or will be on YouTube with
23:44our 10-day trend tomorrow. And if you need to know a little bit more about what's happening over the
23:49next 14 days, well, why not check out my 14-day outlook video, which is available on our app. I'll be
23:54updating that shortly. Thank you so much for watching. Do hit the like button, share this with anyone you
23:59think might be interested in. And don't forget to subscribe. I'll see you again soon. Bye-bye.