00:00Hi there and welcome to the Met Office 10-day trend, a 10-day period in which the UK's weather
00:05changes dramatically. Now, we've been flagging this change for some time because it's linked
00:10to goings on across North America. Now, we saw this intense cold wave develop over the
00:15weekend and the start of the week across Canada and the USA. That then collided with much
00:21warmer subtropical air, creating an enhanced temperature gradient. And often when we see
00:27these enhanced temperature gradients in the Northern Hemisphere, we see a more powerful
00:33jet stream as a result. And that is, in fact, what's coming out of North America at the
00:37moment, a very powerful jet stream, 250 mile per hour winds or so in the upper troposphere.
00:45And that causes areas of low pressure to spin up if they get on the right side of the jet
00:51stream. And in this case, storm Airwind moves onto the cold side of the jet stream and that
00:57allows it to deepen intensely and rapidly, a process known as explosive cyclogenesis
01:04where it deepens more than 24 millibars in 24 hours. And by the time we get to Friday,
01:10that's moving into northwestern parts of the UK and Ireland. So, it's likely to bring a
01:17spell of disruptive, damaging, even dangerous winds on the southern flank as it moves through.
01:25But before we get to storm Airwind, the weather turns unsettled from Thursday because of this
01:30feature just coming in ahead of that more active jet stream. And this is a front that's
01:34likely to bring a spell of heavy rain for a few hours during the morning across western
01:39parts of the UK accompanied by lively winds, 50, 60 mile per hour wind gusts for Wales,
01:44the south and southwest of England, yellow warning in force for this. And then it sweeps
01:49across the UK so that it's wet and windy in Scotland, northern England and the east of
01:53England by the end of the afternoon. Brighter skies from the west but staying blustery with
01:58further showers and feeling cold as that wet and windy weather turns up in the north with
02:02some hill snow for Scotland. It does clear through though and then Thursday evening it's
02:07calmer and clearer for a time that will lead to a touch of frost in one or two spots towards
02:12the east of the UK. And with that cold air in place, that's why we're likely to see a
02:17spell of snow as storm Eowyn turns up mostly over northern hills. Likewise for Ireland
02:24but this is midnight, Thursday night going into Friday and this is when the storm starts
02:29to move in. Initially a band of heavy rain and some hill snow but the winds really pick
02:35up behind the first band of rain and that's what we're all likely to see come Friday.
02:41So the winds are the main concern from storm Eowyn and this graphic shows how fast those
02:46gusts are likely to be. Now we're starting off midnight on Friday and this is just as
02:53storm Eowyn by 2 or 3am brings its most damaging winds into parts of Ireland and the colours
03:01here correspond to the key on the left so you can see just how strong those wind gusts
03:06are likely to be for the Republic of Ireland. That's why MetErin have of course issued red
03:12warnings. But for the UK as well it's likely to be a period of disruptive and in some places
03:17damaging wind. Western Scotland, Western and Southern England, parts of Wales and Northern
03:23Ireland by this stage 4am on Friday seeing wind gusts of 50, 60 and some places we've
03:29got some exposure 70mph. But the winds continue to pick up across Irish Sea coasts through
03:36Friday morning peaking at around 8, 9, 10am and this is when this very nasty swathe of
03:42strong winds is likely to move through Northern Ireland into the Isle of Man as well as North
03:46Wales, North West England and South West Scotland. These winds moving across Northern England
03:52as the morning progresses are likely to be very, very worrying so that's why the Met
03:59Office have issued an amber warning. Now Northern Scotland not seeing particularly strong winds
04:02until later Friday and into early Saturday as Storm Eowyn finally moves away and as you
04:07can see it turns much calmer further south by this stage. But this is the area of most
04:11concern and amber warning in force at the time of recording but of course these warnings
04:16may be refined over the next day or so and updated so I would encourage you to check
04:21the very latest on the Met Office website and app. But for the time being 70mph wind
04:27gusts inland in this zone with a risk of 90mph wind gusts around hills and coasts. Dangerous
04:32conditions around coasts with large waves, flying debris and transport disruption is
04:38likely as well as power cuts. So widespread disruption and dangerous and damaging wind
04:44gusts are likely from this storm. If you've got travel plans on Friday then I would encourage
04:51you to check the forecast and transport news very closely. Be prepared to change your plans
04:57and also if you've got any loose items around your home I would encourage you to secure
05:02those before we get to the winds on Friday. Elsewhere across the UK fairly widely we've
05:07got yellow warnings for the wind, 40-50mph wind gusts towards the south east of the UK.
05:12Elsewhere 70mph wind gusts in exposed locations, perhaps a touch more for western parts of
05:17Scotland. Now winds are going to continue to be strong in the north on Saturday, that's
05:23why there continues to be a yellow warning in Scotland. And on Friday winds aren't the
05:28only concern, we've got a spell of heavy rain for Wales and the south west, 25mm widely,
05:3360 over hills and snow mostly over hills, perhaps some temporary accumulations at lower
05:39levels but mostly we're talking about 5-10cm above a few hundred metres across Scotland
05:45and northern England and the risk of 25cm above 300m on the hills of northern Scotland.
05:55So let's take a look at the rain and the hill snow on Friday as this system moves through.
06:00The worst of the rain and the hill snow moves out of the way by the afternoon. Blustery
06:04showers follow and this is when the winds pick up across northern Scotland but they
06:07start to ease further south and with some brighter spells breaking out but it is going
06:12to be a very windy day for all of us. Then going into Friday night it actually turns
06:17a little calmer further south with clear spells and perhaps in one or two spots a chilly start
06:23to Saturday a touch of frost in places. Blustery showers for central and northern and western
06:27Scotland as well as northern Ireland and some cloud appearing again into the south and south
06:32east with the potential for some rain albeit light to moderate across south east England.
06:38Skip forward to Saturday afternoon and you can see actually it's a reasonable day for
06:42many across England and Wales, sunny spells feeling rather cold. Scotland and northern
06:49Ireland, some western areas seeing showers and these will be falling as snow across Scotland
06:53and it's going to stay windy for much of the day across northern Scotland in particular.
06:58But into Sunday after a fine start to the day it does soon turn unsettled once again
07:06with the next low turning up bringing another spell of wet and then windy weather to many
07:12parts of the UK from the south west. This is 4pm so a dry fine day for many before we've
07:18got this wind and rain moving in by the end of the afternoon.
07:23And this low is a different beast compared with storm Eowyn. It's not likely to directly
07:28cross the UK, it's likely to sit towards the west as a more mature feature. It will still
07:35bring strong winds and heavy rain and that rain falling on top of saturated ground could
07:40cause one or two issues. But it doesn't look like winds are going to be quite as potent
07:45as storm Eowyn. However, it is going to lead to more blustery weather throughout Sunday
07:51into Monday and potentially beyond that as well. The weather stays very unsettled.
07:58Here is that mature low just circling to the west of the UK bringing rain followed by showers
08:03and a very blustery start to next week. And if we skip forward to Tuesday you can see
08:09that a low, if not that one, still sitting to the west and north west of the UK. This
08:15is the most likely weather pattern for Tuesday 28th January and it's looking very unsettled
08:20with low pressure anchored somewhere to the west or north west of the UK. West to south
08:25westerly winds, relatively mild particularly towards the south west, colder further north
08:31and east with spells of rain or showers continuing throughout Tuesday and Wednesday. And in fact
08:37this chart shows that it's likely to stay unsettled throughout next week with areas
08:44of low pressure tending to come and go. These blue colours here on the forecast going out
08:51to the next couple of weeks indicate that low pressure systems of one flavour or another
08:57are likely to stay in charge. And mostly these lows are coloured up by this dark blue, so
09:04westerlies in charge. That is until we get to next Thursday and then this would indicate
09:10that there's quite a lot of uncertainty from that stage in terms of the precise weather
09:15patterns in charge of the UK's weather. But mostly I would suggest that this is just some
09:22uncertainty about where these areas of low pressure are going to end up sitting and that
09:27the trend to much more unsettled weather continues into the start of February. Just to give you
09:32an idea of what that looks like, these are the top three most likely weather patterns
09:36for next Wednesday. The most likely is one low clearing away, showery northwesterly winds,
09:43colder than average in the north, milder than average further south. But other scenarios
09:49show that low pressure to the northwest of the UK is also a possibility with much milder
09:58weather than normal and spells of rain or showers. So a very unsettled look for the
10:03middle of next week no matter which of these weather patterns is most likely. And that
10:09trend continues as January comes to an end. But one subtle difference starts to emerge
10:16in the modelling and that is that higher pressure looks slightly more likely to the south for
10:22the last couple of days of January and into February. And that high pressure edging into
10:27the south for example would lead to a shift in the most unsettled weather towards the
10:33northwest of the UK with perhaps some longer drier spells towards the south. But overall
10:40looking ahead to the 1st of February for example, the weather stays rather changeable with further
10:46blustery winds, milder than average and spells of rain or showers. We'll keep you updated
10:52on everything of course on our YouTube channel and make sure you stay up to date with Storm
10:56Eowyn approaching.
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