This is an in-depth Met Office UK Weather forecast for the next week and beyond. A look at Spring so far and how it compares to others. Plus how warm will this high pressure get? Bringing you this deep dive is Met Office meteorologist Honor Criswick.
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00:00High pressure has pretty much been in charge of our weather since the end of February but why is
00:05this? What does it mean for spring so far and how are we comparing to previous springs and is the
00:13high pressure here to stay? So many questions so little answers hopefully until the end of this
00:18video where I'm going to aim to answer as many of those questions as I can. Hello and welcome
00:24to this week's deep dive my name's Anna Krizwick I'm a meteorologist and presenter here at the
00:29Met Office. Of course it's Tuesday so it's deep dive day. Hello to those viewers who come every
00:35week and if you're new welcome and make sure you subscribe and like this video. We do all sorts of
00:41content across our YouTube channel and across our social media channels including our deep dive today
00:46we've got 10 day trend tomorrow we've got weather studio live on Friday so make sure you are subscribed
00:51so you don't miss any of the good stuff. So I'm going to start off by talking through our weather
00:56so far you might have noticed it's been mostly dry and it's all thanks to this high pressure H for
01:04high pressure not H for honor and we've had high pressure pretty much dominating our weather for
01:10the last few months. Now it's been slightly different it's sometimes drifted off towards
01:16Europe allowed some systems to come through but then high pressure has quickly built back in that's a
01:21pretty similar story as to what we're going to see over the next few days and it's not uncommon to
01:27have this is what we call a blocking high and we tend to see this when our jet stream looks wavy like
01:34this this is called an amplified pattern so an amplified pattern is when the jet stream dips down
01:39dips back up northwards and back down south and because of this we tend to get areas of high pressure
01:44building underneath that jet and they tend to stick around. What's unusual about this one is that
01:50it's not really gone anywhere since around about the end of February so for much of spring in
01:56particular we've had high pressure so it's been very sunny it's been very dry and last week it
02:01actually got very warm we got one of our warmer starts to May on record we've also had one of our
02:06sunniest Aprils on record as well which I'm going to talk about in a moment. So is the high pressure
02:13sticking around? Well let's take a look if I'm just going to turn off the jet stream for now so this is
02:19Tuesday afternoon if we head through on Wednesday we can see high pressure still with us skipped
02:27through into Thursday still with us as we head through in towards the end of the week still with
02:34us but notice the centre of the high once again drifting its way towards parts of Europe this is
02:40allowing some frontal systems eventually to sweep their way in low pressure just to the northwest of
02:46Iceland there so that does mean by the time we reach it's quite slow moving as high pressure is still
02:51the dominant feature across the UK but by the time we reach later Saturday into Sunday that could just
02:58bring in a bit more cloud perhaps some light outbreaks of rain to the very far northwest of the country
03:05but otherwise high pressure fine and settled. That centre of the high that we've we're seeing at the beginning
03:13of the week slipping its way towards Europe but notice another area of high pressure building
03:18back in this time into the northwest. We saw a similar pattern last week actually over the weekend
03:23dipping away and then another area building back in from the north that brought us the cooler temperatures
03:28it brought us in that northerly flow over the weekend so even though it was largely dry largely sunny
03:33bar a few showers in the east it was still largely dry and sunny but it did get a lot cooler with that
03:39more northerly flow. So as always it's very much dependent on whereabouts the high pressure sits
03:44but overall we do tend to get more dry settled weather. Another thing to know actually by the
03:49time we get to Sunday if I turn on our air mass temperatures just notice there's a little bit of
03:55an area of low pressure just towards the Bay of Biscay here dragging in a frontal system that just could
04:02push up across parts of the southwest so a warmer humid more kind of plume of air just pushing up across the
04:08southwest and an occlusion feature so a chance we could see some showers into Sunday across the
04:14southwest and they could turn heavy and thundery so it is a bit of a watch point for this week
04:19particularly as there's not much else going on so a chance of some heavy thundery showers on Sunday
04:23a very low risk very low risk that we could see a warning for those thunderstorms but the main watch
04:29point I suppose over the next few days. So in terms of weather then if you haven't already guessed
04:35over the next few days it's not really changing that much I'm going to skip forward to Wednesday
04:42by the time this goes out Tuesday it'll be Tuesday afternoon. So Wednesday, Thursday, Friday into the
04:48weekend mostly dry. Now a few caveats there are going to be some cloud at times we can see as we head
04:55into tomorrow it's going to be a fair amount of low cloud particularly across central areas
04:58as we enter Thursday northeastern areas catching a fair amount of cloud the north of England on Friday
05:04obviously that system is starting to move its way in from the northwest as we head into Saturday so
05:10thicker cloud and some outbreaks a very light rain possibly just clipping the far northwest
05:15Shetland in particular could be at risk here but it's it's not going to be anything really impactful
05:21or unusual we're not really concerned about rainfall totals or anything like that so on the whole
05:26dry settled that cloud could be thick enough to produce the odd shower so if you're unlucky you
05:33might catch a shower but overall the general consensus high pressure dry settled over the next
05:38few days but how warm is it going to get obviously we like the sunshine but we also tend to like it
05:44being a little bit warmer as well so let's take a look at temperatures over the next few days
05:51here we go oh no that was the right one got too keen so if I head over to Wednesday then
05:58we can see as we head through the week similar as to what we had last week temperatures are increasing
06:05by a degree or two day by day high pressure we've got air sinking creating that area of high pressure
06:12we've got subsidence taking place so things tend to warm things tend to dry out so we're likely to see
06:18less cloud as the day goes on and things getting warmer so some slightly warmer temperatures day by
06:22day unlikely to get as hot as last week but still likely even tomorrow into Wednesday we could start
06:30to see the low 20s perhaps just creeping up into the low 20s once again as we head into Saturday for many
06:36areas as always a little bit of a caveat where we just see that high pressure slightly situated to
06:42the northwest we get a bit of a breeze across northeastern areas that is just gonna knock down
06:48the temperatures a little bit here so feeling slightly cooler here but in the sunshine and
06:52sheltered spots still gonna feel rather pleasant it just might not perhaps get quite as warm so on
06:57Wednesday for example we could see 18 to 20 degrees celsius particularly around central areas
07:03or kind of western Scotland perhaps might start to get those kind of temperatures but kind of a bit
07:09more widely as we head into Saturday and even Sunday looks fairly warm as well 19-20 we're picking
07:15up at 21 across the south on Sunday so temperatures are getting warmer day by day and we'll start to see
07:22a little less cloud towards the weekend as well that's away from the northwest though
07:27so similar to last week potentially not getting quite as warm but lots of dry settled weather
07:33just in time for us all to go back to work but this time it looks like it's continuing as we head over the
07:38weekend we're not going to see that cooler spell as we did uh with the weekend just gone
07:43and uh just to show you this in another way if we take a look at some uh
07:48oh one temperature graphs here we go so let's take a look at London
07:52we can see here nicely those temperatures increasing day by day now with the clearer spells overnight
07:58particularly the next couple of nights it could be quite chilly for some oh let's just realize that
08:03oh I got London first time last time but we're uh it's not happening now oh well but it gives you the
08:09general jest but um the next couple of nights um cool skies light winds there's a good chance we could
08:16see some quite cool mornings even though it should be fairly bright particularly up north a very um
08:21isolated chance of even some rural frost in places um but notice even minimum temperatures as we go
08:27through the week are on the rise so it's not just maximum temperatures it's minimum temperatures as
08:32well as we go through the week so this is across the southeast I still can't get London there look
08:38oh well uh there we go I got Birmingham straight away so temperatures once again on the rise looking
08:44at 1920 as we head into the weekend and into next week take a look at Ireland looks like we're starting
08:51to see a brief warm spell and then temperatures cooling off that's probably fairly similar yeah across parts of
08:56Scotland as well that's just as we're going to start to get a bit more cloud feeding into
09:01the north northwest with that system running through so temperatures not going to be getting
09:05quite as warm but um still for many of us starting to see that warm spell as we head
09:09towards the weekend now on the whole it's it is good news a lot of us like the warm sunny weather
09:16but we do have to bear in mind it has been a very dry month it's been a very dry season we've seen
09:23very very little rainfall and there is still wildfires going on particularly across northern areas
09:29there's issues such as very low levels across reservoirs things like that so yes if you like if
09:35you're a fan of the warm sunny weather it is a good thing but there's also other environmental
09:39impacts that we do need to bear in mind so it could potentially cause further issues as we head over
09:44the next few weeks so speaking of uh being very dry being very sunny i thought it'd be quite good
09:52to take a look at spring so far obviously there's still a few weeks away or only at the beginning of
09:58may um the end of meteorological spring will be the end of this month so the 31st of may a little bit
10:04later for um astronomical spring there's a slight difference in dates there but i thought we'd take a
10:10look at spring so far just because we did already have our warmest start to may we've had our sunniest
10:17april make sure i get those the right way around so i thought it'd just be interesting to take a look so
10:21far and it's probably unsurprising to note that we've had some very warm temperatures here's a graph
10:29showing our mean temperatures across springs so from the 1st of march so far so we just stop here
10:36what's the date today so this is since yesterday um so 6th of may round about here now if we follow
10:43this blue line this is the kind of lowest if you compare it to average the 1991 to 2020 average this
10:50is the these are the kind of lowest mean temperatures and this orange line at the top these are our maximum
10:55temperatures that we maximum mean temperatures that we've seen across the 91 to 2020 um uh record
11:04so if we take a look at spring so far beginning of march mean temperatures were on the rise
11:11right at the start of march we took a little bit of a dip but on the whole as we've head through the
11:16end of march most of april temperatures have been on the rise day by day not unusual to see an upward
11:21trend obviously as we get closer to summer but notice that we have been very high it's mostly if we follow
11:28this down beginning of april where we started to see these very high mean temperatures so towards the
11:34maximum compared to average not only that we're pretty much bang on the line for kind of middle
11:40part of april and as we head as we begin may as well i wouldn't be surprised it's a little bit covered
11:45but i wouldn't be surprised if we touch above that line as well so temperatures are very warm for the
11:50time of year average temperatures day by day not only this but our maximum temperatures compared to
11:57average once again a very similar trend we saw that very warm start at the beginning of march a slight
12:02dip and then temperatures have been increasing day by day and once again here's this orange line here
12:08we have surpassed some of those maximum temperatures for spring obviously seeing the warmest start to
12:13spring so far on record at the beginning of may so if we continue like this in terms of temperatures
12:20there is the potential for it to be the warmest spring on record but there's still a few weeks
12:26away so don't quote me on that another thing to note obviously it's been really warm and yes it's
12:33because it's been very dry as well look how dark this chart is obviously still yes few weeks away to
12:39the end of meteorological spring but at this time of year you'd normally expect around 72 percent of the
12:47average rainfall and many areas are kind of closer to the 30 percent mark so still very very low even
12:54for this time in spring now the odd area mainly in the there's been quite localized area in kind of
13:01northwestern scotland western parts of northern ireland southwest wales a very far southwest of
13:09cornwall there are a bit closer to where we would normally expect for this time of year
13:14but most of the country has still been very very dry for the time of year and of course the reason
13:19for that is it's been quite sunny we've seen quite a lot of sunshine so far in uh in spring
13:27particularly already across east anglia parts of lincolnshire central areas many areas now above the
13:34average um above the average sunshine hours so far this spring in fact what i can tell you is last spring
13:42i don't know if you remember we're going to take a quick look at it in a minute uh in a minute it was
13:47very wet we're having a very different spring spring compared to last uh compared to last year so in
13:53terms of sunshine hours across the uk we've seen 425.3 hours of sunshine that's 93 percent of the average
14:02for the uk as a whole spring last year we only had 377.4 hours that's 83 percent of the average so
14:10already this uh so far in spring we've had more sunshine so it's already on track to be sunnier
14:16than last year but is it going to be the sunniest overall remains to be seen uh not only that if i just
14:23take us back to our um our um rainfall map here uh we've only seen about 35 overall in the uk of average
14:34rainfall amounts that equivalates to a 78.7 millimeters whereas last year it was very wet
14:43if i show you this one here a very different chart obviously this takes on spring overall last year
14:49whereas we haven't quite finished spring yet but we can see many more blues on this chart in fact
14:55last year we had 132 percent of average rainfall amounts that that once again is a 301.7 millimeters
15:04of rainfall so very very wet last spring a very different spring to the spring we're having so far
15:10and that was because there wasn't quite as much sunshine there wasn't quite as as much dry weather we
15:16did have some dry periods uh it was one of the warmest springs as well but we had storm kathleen
15:23it was the 11th storm around the beginning of april so still quite late in the season that brought
15:29quite a lot of rainfall across many areas so yeah around 132 percent for the uk as a whole
15:37in terms of rainfall so just comparing last year to this year is very interesting we've had very
15:43different seasons it's not going to be uncommon now that we start to see quite a variability in
15:49our seasons as a result of our changing climate um but this year the reason why it's been so dry
15:57it's been so sunny is because of those blocking highs we're still under the influence of the blocking
16:01high we were last week and we are this week and it's all because of what i said at the beginning that
16:05amplified jet creating those blocking patterns a very different pattern last year we had more of a
16:12zonal pattern our jet stream slightly further south that allowed areas of low pressure to swing past
16:18bringing us more rainfall so it's a very different setup if we compare it to last year
16:24so it is a little bit uncommon to have a blocking high for this long as i say it's been with us
16:30there or thereabouts since around the end of february but we did have a similar setup back in 2020.
16:38a very memorable spring and summer because we were all stuck inside and we didn't have much else
16:44to talk about so we focused on the weather um so i hate to take you back to that dark time but i'm
16:50just going to talk about it for a little bit of course spring 2020 right in the middle of the um
16:55all right the it's probably more of the start of the uh the covid lockdown but we had a very once
17:01again we had a blocking high pattern so very dry spring and a very sunny spring in fact it was the
17:08sunniest spring on record since records began in 1919 we actually had more sunshine than most summers i
17:16think prior to this there was only about three summers where we had more sunshine so for spring
17:21on its own very sunny even um surpassing some summers that we've previous had it was the eighth
17:28warmest for the uk eighth warmest spring fifth if you just include england and wales and it was the
17:34fifth driest in the uk so we're seeing a very similar setup to what we had in 2020 there's still a
17:43few more weeks of spring but if we carry on the way that we are um if i just get up this for example
17:51what's it almost four weeks left to go three and a half ish so if we carry on the way that we are
17:58there's a chance we could see the warmest potentially the driest potentially the sunniest
18:02so it is definitely one to watch but is the high pressure sticking around or is there more of a chance
18:08of rain um well at the moment i've got to say there's very little signal of rainfall
18:15and if we take a look at actually i'm going to move on to this first you should be pretty familiar
18:22with this already if you're quite familiar with our videos these red colors indicating high pressure
18:28most likely across the uk if we saw more blues here's the key at the bottom blues indicates low
18:34pressure dominating our weather across the uk and green is kind of unbiased conditions so we're kind
18:39of looking out for the reds and the blues these are our most recent model runs and as we move
18:45our way further down these are later model runs and this is over the next two weeks so as we move
18:49our way along this is moving further into the future and what can we see lots of reds it looks
18:55very similar to my dress lots of reds on its way and even these percentage chances still very high even
19:01as we get to the middle of may we're still looking around 60 to 70 percent so a good strong signal
19:08signal across all our models that high pressure is sticking around more dry weather potentially more
19:14sunshine not only this i thought i'd also take a look around where our air is coming from similar
19:23colors but they show slightly different things so this time our red colors are indicating a southerly
19:28flow air coming up from the south tends to be warmer and blue colors more of a northerly flow
19:35and so we can see green at the moment over the next week or so that's kind of neither kind of
19:41southerly or northerly we've just got that high pressure blocked pattern sticking around
19:46we see more of the blue colors as we head towards middle part of may still fairly low percentages so
19:52a good chance it could change but we've seen similar patterns as we work our way down to
19:56older model runs but something that's fairly new as we head this is from around the 16th of may
20:03with our most recent model runs is an indication of these more red colors so more southerly flow
20:08so there's a slight indication there that we'll see more of our weather coming up from the south
20:13we tend to see warmer plumes at this time of year so a chance that we could start to see some quite
20:17warm temperatures so once again if this comes off a chance still already us being above that average
20:24line and continuing still as we head into may so there are further into may so there are indications
20:31that high pressure sticking around the chance we could see some more warmer air coming up from the south
20:36and even if high pressure sits on its own across the country as i've already mentioned that air moving
20:42down subsidence taking place things getting drier things getting warmer
20:48um but if we do take a quick look further ahead i'm not going to go in too much detail because
20:53tomorrow what do we have we have our 10 day trend so i don't want to step it's alex burkehill this
20:58week so i don't want to step on any toes and also a chance it could change
21:01um so i just wanted to take a look we had
21:10um so here we are you can see it here this is for a week's time so tuesday the 13th
21:16still high pressure or a good chance of high pressure uh dominating our weather if we take a
21:21look at this stack probability chart as a whole once again those kind of red orange yellowy colors
21:27indicating high pressure of some sort dominating our weather and we can see it's pretty much red
21:33through and through any of these bluer colors indicating some kind of lower pressures very low
21:37on the probability scale so it does look like over the next couple of weeks that takes us up to the
21:4319th of may high pressure dominating what that will look like potentially in a week's time something like
21:48this as we saw that high pressure is building back in from the northwest so it could just bring in once
21:53again some slightly cooler temperatures across eastern areas a chance that could we could see a
21:58few showers just drifting in from the north sea but overall high pressure dominating giving us largely
22:03settled conditions and we can see kind of rainfall anomalies here as well if we move over into europe
22:09but we can see for the uk there's not really anything there so dry and it's fairly similar even as we
22:16head into the weekend so this is for next saturday so the 17th once again the high pressure
22:22still sat nicely to the northwest still bringing in that kind of uh northeasterly flow so still a
22:29chance could be a little bit cooler across eastern areas uh but eventually we'll start to see that if
22:34if the models are correct we'll start to see that swing around if it pushes more to the northwest we
22:38get a bit more of a southerly flow kind of like what we're going to see over the weekend and perhaps a
22:43kind of warmer plume moving back through but obviously that also brings the risk of showers
22:47potentially some thunderstorms as we can see on sunday so yes high pressure is sticking around if
22:53we if we kind of stick on track to what we've seen so far there is the potential for spring
22:59potentially breaking some records but still a few weeks to go and obviously as i've already mentioned
23:05yes the warm sunshine is very nice still need to be very careful it's time of year if you're heading
23:10out for a barbecue watch for fires if you're heading out to the seed sea temperatures are still fairly
23:14chilly so keep an eye out for those so yes the high pressure the warm settled weather is very nice
23:19i'm a big fan of it myself but we do need to take be aware of the environmental impacts and the potential
23:25health impacts it can bring to you so that's what it's looking like we'll have to see over the next
23:31few weeks as to what actually happens but as i say there's a very strong signal for high pressure
23:36sticking around um so i think that is pretty much everything i wanted to speak about so far
23:46make sure i haven't missed anything but yes oh but i did forget to mention this so i'll just mention
23:52it briefly but we've already spoken about temperatures over the next coming weeks but
23:56particularly over the next few days temperatures are on the up this is temperatures compared to average
24:01so the anomaly so we can see from thursday many areas kind of around about average those eastern
24:07areas feeling a little bit cooler in that northeasterly breeze things starting to warm up across the south
24:12across scotland and then we start to see those temperatures increasing a bit more widespread
24:17widespreadly i don't think that's a word but as we head into saturday some areas you can see eastern
24:23parts of scotland northeastern parts of england kind of a good eight to ten degrees above average so
24:28starting to see that warmer weather return once again but otherwise i'm going to stop there if i
24:34didn't cover anything that you wanted me to or if you have a few more questions about what we've spoken
24:38about so far make sure to drop them in the comments as already mentioned we've got the weather studio
24:43live this friday it'll be me and alex burke hill so i'll take a look at those before friday and we'll
24:49try and drop some of the some of the questions in if you have any into our weather studio live
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25:04well and yes make sure to tune in for our weather studio live friday at 12 15 but even if you miss
25:10it you can still watch it even if it's not live anymore but thank you so much for joining me make
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25:20subscribe enjoy the sunny weather while it's here and i'll see you i'll see you again very shortly bye