Amber warning for rain – Week Ahead 18/01/21 - video Dailymotion

Met Office

A very busy week of weather in store with yellow and amber warnings for rain before it turns colder later. Met Office meteorologist Aidan McGivern has the forecast.

Transcript

00:00Hello, and welcome to the Met Office Week Ahead forecast. And boy, what a week we have

00:05ahead of ourselves in terms of the weather because there will be some significant impacts

00:09from various elements of the weather. Primarily, Storm Christoph was expected to bring some

00:14very heavy rain to parts of the UK and the risk of flooding in parts of England and Wales

00:20in particular. Colder conditions remain to the north of Scotland and that cold air will

00:26affect other locations later in the week. But it's all about the mild air when we're

00:31talking about Christoph because here's Christoph at the time recording a low in the Atlantic

00:37carrying rain-bearing weather fronts and a south-westerly fetch bringing particularly

00:41mild and moist weather in from the south-west. But it bumps into the cold air that is resident

00:47to the north of the UK and that means that when these weather fronts arrive, they'll

00:52just stall. They'll bump into this cold air, some snow on the northern flank of them, but

00:56effectively they'll stall through central areas bringing an enhanced risk of heavy rain,

01:02snow melt and flooding. Now, initially on Monday evening, it's outbreaks of mainly light

01:06rain across southern Scotland, northern Ireland, England and Wales. But then it turns heavier

01:11later on, one bout of heavy rain moving along the south coast and then it sets up shop across

01:16north Wales and northern England where, like I say, it will stall and over western hills

01:20in these locations, it will be particularly wet. A completely different story for the

01:24north of Scotland. A very cold start to Tuesday here, frost in many locations but some wintry

01:30showers, sleet and hail at lower levels, snow over the hills. These are fading through the

01:34day, a dry and bright day north of the central belt I think. But the rain starts to turn

01:38heavy and prolonged for northern Ireland, southern Scotland and northern England as

01:42well as Wales and the south-west. Some drips and drabs of rain elsewhere but really it's

01:47this northern and central swathe where we're going to see the wettest conditions, the mildest

01:52air as well. 11 degrees in the south-west but, well, mid to low single figures in the

01:57north of Scotland. And where we've got that contrast on the boundary, well, we're likely

02:02to see some colder air bringing snow over the hills of northern Ireland and southern

02:06Scotland, accumulating snow in southern Scotland primarily above 200 metres, perhaps coming

02:11down to 100 metres and some significant snow above 300 or 400 metres, 5 to 10 centimetres,

02:16a couple of centimetres above 200 metres. Now further north, again another chilly night

02:21to come across northern Scotland but a mild night to come on Tuesday night for much of

02:26England and Wales where we've got that heavy rain still going on Wednesday and you can

02:31see the brighter colours there, northern England, Wales into parts of the Midlands later on

02:36as well and it's just going to be thoroughly soggy and the prolonged rainfall combining

02:41with snow melt to bring an enhanced risk of flooding. Brighter skies for Scotland and

02:45northern Ireland, feeling colder here as well, but let's focus on the rain because

02:49we have yellow warnings and amber warnings in force for that wet weather and it's likely

02:54that we're going to see the wettest conditions over northern and western hills. If we put

02:58some numbers on that, I think across northern Ireland, southern Scotland, much of England

03:03and Wales between Monday and Thursday we can expect 30 and in some places 50 millimetres

03:08of rain, heavy rain there for the south coast, but the heaviest rain will be over western

03:13hills, the south west moors for example, but more especially north Wales, northern

03:17parts of England and into parts of the Midlands and Lincolnshire as well. That's where the

03:22amber warning is, 100 to 150 millimetres and over the most exposed hills up to 200 millimetres.

03:30That combined with snow melt could cause some serious flooding impacts. And you can see

03:34why the snow is melting, it's very mild in the south but colder air is waiting in the

03:38north and that's going to start to spread south later on Wednesday. So Christoph moves

03:44into the North Sea, the isobars tighten, strengthening winds bringing that cold air south. The rain

03:50ban though pushes back into north east Scotland and with that we're likely to see some significant

03:56snow for north east Scotland later Wednesday and into Thursday. Meanwhile the rain eases

04:01across England and Wales later in the day, finally drier and brighter for much of the

04:06UK but feeling colder and the snow will really build up across parts of northern Scotland

04:12in particular north east Scotland, some significant snowfall accumulating here even at lower levels.

04:18Further south, primarily rain showers with snow confined to hills and feeling cold, much

04:24colder compared to the last few days. Friday starts off along a similar vein with cold

04:29air in place and further wintry showers, perhaps some outbreaks of rain further south and some

04:33hill snow as well. The snow coming down to lower levels for northern Scotland along with

04:38a cold wind but away from coasts I think a lot of the time it will be dry with some sunshine,

04:44a much colder feel though compared to earlier in the week. And just a brief look ahead to

04:49what's happening as we head into the weekend, low pressure moving away, we've got this cold

04:54north to northwesterly airflow so it's going to stay cold on Saturday, not desperately

04:59cold but cold enough to bring further snow showers to northern Scotland and some snow

05:03showers to the hills elsewhere. We'll keep you updated with the weather this week and

05:07of course you can check any updates with weather warnings on the Met Office website and app

05:12and you can follow us on social media to keep across all of the stuff that's going on. Bye

05:16bye.

Amber warning for rain – Week Ahead 18/01/21

Category

Transcript

Recommended