00:00Hi there, welcome to the Met Office forecast for the upcoming weekend.
00:04It's felt cold all week but through the weekend less cold Atlantic air tries to make inroads
00:10from the west, it comes up against the cold air to the east and in between we've got weather
00:14fronts and that will always lead at this time of year to a wintry mix of precipitation,
00:20rain, sleet, snow and even in some places particularly the Pennines on Saturday morning
00:25some freezing rain possible and you can see the snow there across parts of north-east
00:30England into south-east Scotland, a small amount of snow also for the Grampians.
00:34We're talking small amounts so at lower levels, yeah, patchy covering of wet snow possible
00:41across parts of northern England but the more significant snow more likely to build up over
00:46the hills, so the North York Moors, the Pennines for example and more especially the Grampians.
00:52Here's the south-west on Saturday, actually it's much milder, we've got Wales, the south-west
00:58of England and parts of northern Ireland seeing rain rather than anything wintry, a lot of
01:03low cloud though, some mist, murk and hill fog, temperatures of 8 or 9 Celsius back towards
01:09average, still feeling cold in the east and we've got this remarkable contrast across
01:13the UK as we end Saturday.
01:15This is 4pm on Saturday and this graphic shows the height of the freezing level, the height
01:20at which the atmosphere goes below freezing above sea level and what this shows is that
01:26you have to go all the way up to 1400 metres across northern Ireland, parts of Wales, the
01:30south and south-west to find the zero degree isotherm and that's because this is Atlantic
01:36air, it's less cold.
01:38This air comes from the continent and actually the freezing level is about 2, 3, 400 metres
01:43above sea level and there's such a tight gradient between those two air masses because they're
01:48not mixing, they're just colliding and it's in between that boundary where we've got weather
01:52fronts, where we've got bands of precipitation and therefore a messy mixture of rain, sleet,
01:57snow and freezing rain.
02:00Now playing this through, later Saturday and overnight what you can see is this air across
02:05the continent makes a return, so the Atlantic having pushed in at first on Saturday then
02:11makes a retreat by Sunday and it's still mild across the south-west but the rest of the
02:17country does turn a bit colder once again.
02:20Nevertheless, Saturday evening that's what this is showing, a lot of cloud across the
02:24UK, mist, murk, hill fog and we've got those outbreaks of rain and drizzle but they are
02:31turning increasingly wintry as the cold air makes a return so for the Midlands into the
02:35south-east and eastern parts of the UK we're going to see again mostly light and patchy,
02:42sleet and snow in places, even some freezing rain once again but towards the south-west
02:46that's where the less cold Atlantic air remains and we've still got that battleground between
02:53the Atlantic air and the continental air on Sunday, it's just that the boundary has shifted
02:58and here's where we're sitting on Sunday morning, six o'clock, Northern Ireland, Wales and the
03:03south-west tending to be in the less wintry air mass, so lots of cloud and more likely
03:10to see rain but further east, Scotland, Northern and Eastern England, the Midlands as well,
03:16likely to see some wintry weather, again mostly light precipitation, patchy here and there
03:24and also a mixture of sleet and snow tending to fizzle away later in the day, some brighter
03:29skies coming in towards the east, some cloud breaks and we could even see some sunshine
03:35in parts of East Anglia and the south-east, Northern Scotland also seeing some sleet and
03:39snow showers but some sunny spells in between, average temperatures in the west, still feeling
03:45very cold in the east. Through next week eventually the Atlantic winds out but we've got a few
03:51days at the start of the week in which it will continue to feel on the cold side.
Comments