- 7 months ago
This is the Met Office UK Weather forecast for the next 10 days 07/01/2026.
Milder air tries to push away the cold air but will it manage it and will it create some snow in the process.
Bringing you this 10 day weather forecast is Alex Deakin.
Milder air tries to push away the cold air but will it manage it and will it create some snow in the process.
Bringing you this 10 day weather forecast is Alex Deakin.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Ooh, the first 10-day trend of 2026 has something for everyone, you might say.
00:06Snowmantics, like myself, well, enough to keep us interested.
00:09Those of you that like a scrap may not be your cup of tea, though, if you don't like uncertainty.
00:15Now, in the short term, there is quite a lot of confidence in the forecast,
00:20and the reason for that in part due to the position of the jet stream.
00:23Quite an angry-looking jet stream, that fast-moving ribbon of air high up in the atmosphere.
00:28It's fragmenting a little bit, and that is crucial for the development of Storm Goretti.
00:34More on that shortly.
00:35But I wanted to show you this initially to show that by the time we get into the early part of next week,
00:39the jet is not as lively, certainly not close to the UK.
00:43It's still pretty active out in the Atlantic, but close to the UK, more fragmented and weakened,
00:49which means our weather systems become more slow-moving, which always gives us a few more headaches.
00:54But let's get back to the shortish term.
00:58Now, I'm not going to go into the full details of Storm Goretti.
01:02All of the weather warnings are on our app and on our websites,
01:06and you can get much more in the daily weather forecasts that we do.
01:10This is the 10-day trend, so I say I'm not going to go into too much of the details
01:13about what we can expect from Goretti,
01:15but I just wanted to show you how it's forming, how it's developing,
01:18because at the time of recording, there's not much to it.
01:21Out in the Atlantic, barely even an area of low pressure, but it's going to develop.
01:25It's going to intensify, and this fragmenting jet stream is part of the reason.
01:30Breaking up into jet streaks, and this particular jet streak will develop Goretti
01:35as it crosses the jet stream and enters into what we call this left exit zone.
01:42So for the early part of Thursday, just watch as it goes.
01:44Pop, pop, pop.
01:45The isobars jump out of it, and it really turns into an intense area of low pressure
01:51as it approaches the southwest of the UK.
01:54Now, because it's not really fully developed yet,
01:56and it's going to develop quickly as we go through Thursday,
01:59there's still a bit of scope for it to be a bit further north and a bit further south,
02:03which will have impact on the severest of the weather that we see.
02:07But at the moment, it looks like these isobars are really squeezing together,
02:10bringing some very strong winds through Thursday evening across southwest England,
02:14and then particularly as it moves across the strongest winds on this southern flank.
02:20There's isobars really pinching together some dangerous-looking winds
02:23possible across the Channel Isles and northern France,
02:26and that's why Meteo France named this weather system.
02:29That's why it's called Goretti.
02:31But certainly still across southwest England, the potential for 70, 80-mile-an-hour gusts,
02:35and there is an amber warning in force for that.
02:38So that's the winds.
02:39Now let's deal with the wet weather.
02:40If we rewind, the rain, and it will be rain coming in initially during Thursday across the southwest,
02:46could be pretty heavy, southwest England, south Wales.
02:49And then the snow risk as it hits the colder air, initially over south Wales, particularly over the hills,
02:55but increasingly as the system moves to the east,
02:59digging in behind with the colder air, parts of Wales and then the Midlands,
03:03susceptible to many centimetres of snowfall.
03:07As it clears away, could still have some snow mixed in.
03:09It all depends on the intensity and how cold the air stays moving around that area of low pressure,
03:17moving around Storm Goretti.
03:19As I said, not going to go into the full details of the weather warnings.
03:21Do check out those for yourself.
03:23But whether we see snow or rain across east Anglia and the southeast on Friday,
03:28it's still going to be a pretty grim day.
03:30Across much of eastern England, a cold, cold wind blowing.
03:33There will be rain and that wind making it feel even colder than it actually is.
03:39Elsewhere, for the west, things will be drying up.
03:42Of course, it may well still be very slippery and icy where we've had any snow falling through the night.
03:47But many places looking dry for much of Friday.
03:50But with that wet weather across the eastern, that cold wind blowing,
03:53temperatures 4 or 5 degrees at best add on that wind and it will feel much colder than that.
03:58So as I said, a pretty grim day across those eastern areas.
04:01Now, as you go into the weekend, things do calm down.
04:04Saturday may well be the driest, brightest day of the next several for many of us.
04:09Notice, though, there is another area of low pressure.
04:11This one looks a bit too intense on our model.
04:14I don't think it'll be quite this lively.
04:16But still bringing some gusty winds across the north of Scotland.
04:20And also, potentially, some more snowfall.
04:22Of course, northern Scotland's been the area so far this year that's been the worst affected by snow.
04:27So any more here won't be welcome.
04:29But away from the north of Scotland, I say many places dry on Saturday.
04:34Then, the big question as we go into Sunday.
04:37And another area of low pressure.
04:39This one not as intense as Goretti further north.
04:42But bringing a broader swathe of milder air in from the Atlantic.
04:47And that's the big question mark.
04:48The timing of this milder air pushing in through Sunday.
04:51These weather fronts will be bringing the moisture from the Atlantic.
04:55So they'll be bringing rain initially.
04:58But the question mark is, as it hits the colder air, could we see some further snowfall later on Sunday into western areas?
05:05And perhaps they're moving its way across central and eastern areas.
05:08I say perhaps because, as we will see, there is quite a bit of uncertainty in the progression of this weather front.
05:15It probably won't look like this.
05:17Just showing you this to show you the potential that it has to bring some snow later Sunday and into Sunday night.
05:25Just rewinding now to Sunday evening to show you the broader picture.
05:28Because low pressure sitting here, just notice the dip in the ice bars.
05:31That's where the weather front is expected to be on Sunday evening.
05:34Now I'm going to compare this.
05:36This is the Met Office model to the European model.
05:39The main control run of the European model.
05:42It's got a more intense area of low pressure, but in a similar position.
05:45Crucially, it's got that dip in the ice bars.
05:47That's where the weather front is, in a very similar position.
05:50Rewind back to the Met Office model.
05:53So the weather fronts from the Met Office deterministic and the European model, the ECMWF model, control run, in a very similar position.
06:02So they're both bringing that wet weather in with the potential for snow as it hits the colder air.
06:08But if you watch the 10-day trend long enough, you know that that's not necessarily the best way to determine these medium to longer range forecasts.
06:16We run the model many times, what's called an ensemble.
06:19And this is one of those runs from the ECMWF.
06:23It's got low pressure in a similar position.
06:25But look at where the dip is in the ice bars.
06:26Look at where it thinks the weather front is, much further away as we go into Sunday evening, away from the UK.
06:34So this will keep things pretty dry until later on Sunday night.
06:38And when we look at all of the data, all of the ensemble model runs, that's what this chart is showing for ECMWF here and the Met Office behind me.
06:49And I want to show you this.
06:50These are called spaghetti plots.
06:52It's not just me randomly drawing lines.
06:54Each of these red lines represents where that weather front is based on each of the ensemble model runs.
07:01It's not as clear in the Met Office run, but the yellow line is the deterministic.
07:05And that is at the leading edge of all the red cluster.
07:09It's easy to see here on the European model run.
07:12The yellow line, the control line, is at the leading edge of the broader area.
07:18So we think that those deterministic model runs are a bit too far ahead and it's more likely to be further back.
07:26And it's crucial the timing because, you know, temperatures of a degree or so make a difference between whether you see rain or whether you see snow.
07:34So because we're a bit unsure about the timing of it, it's hard to pin down where I could see snow at this stage as we go through Sunday night and into Monday.
07:42But it's definitely an area we need to keep a very close eye on.
07:46We are likely to see some.
07:47It's just at this stage, four days away, too early to say where.
07:52Now, back to the Met Office model and what it thinks is going to happen.
07:55It sweeps the milder air in as we go through Sunday night and into Monday.
08:00And, yeah, we keep in the milder air for Monday and into Tuesday.
08:04But, again, we think this is happening too quickly.
08:07Again, if you look at the ensembles and look at the many model runs, then they're showing us lots of different things.
08:14And this is, again, back to the UCMWF, but it's kind of showing the same thing because each of these ensemble members, as they're known, a different run where you just tweak the initial conditions somewhat and you get different outcomes.
08:27And just zoom in a little bit.
08:29You can pick out number 39 there, which keeps the cold air in place.
08:32The blue is the colder air.
08:33The greens and the yellow is the milder air.
08:35In 41, well, that would agree with the Met Office deterministic model getting the milder air in.
08:41But there are quite a few that keep the colder air certainly close to central and eastern parts of the UK.
08:47So that's the question mark.
08:49As we go through the weekend, more particularly into the early next week, will the mild air push in or will the cold air win out and stick around?
08:58It often does at this time of year.
08:59The cold air is very dense.
09:01It's hard to budge out of the way.
09:03And that's the big battleground.
09:05That's the fight that I was talking about early next week.
09:09It's a scrap between the cold air staying in place and that milder and wetter air trying to push in.
09:15And where they clash, there is the real likelihood of seeing further snow, potentially further heavy snow as well.
09:22But at the moment, too early to say exactly where, exactly when.
09:25So the message, stay up to date with the forecast as we head into the weekend.
09:30Beyond that, well, I'd love to give you more certainty.
09:33But actually, we've still got that same scrap going on, it looks like, for much of next week.
09:38This is, again, one of the European model ECMWF model ensemble model runs that's got the milder air in for Wednesday.
09:46But I can pick out another one, has a similar setup with low pressure behind me, high pressure across Europe.
09:52This one's got the colder air still in place.
09:55So, again, that fight likely to continue into next week.
10:00And there's lots of other ways that I can show you this, but it's basically the same kind of story.
10:03The most likely pressure setup for Thursday and next week has the colder air in place with high pressure over Scandinavia.
10:11This one, the second most likely, actually has an easterly wind, quite a brisk easterly wind.
10:16This one has low pressure sitting over the UK with the air generally on the chilly side.
10:20But look at the numbers.
10:21We're talking single figures for any one of these as a percentage chance.
10:25And it's very similar for Friday.
10:27Again, lots of different outcomes, some of them keeping it cold, some of them closer to average with low pressure.
10:33It's just too hard to pick a winner, if you like, at this stage.
10:38And there's nothing unusual about this.
10:39We're talking over a week away.
10:42Another way of looking at that uncertainty, this graph is showing, or this map is showing,
10:46the probability of temperatures getting over 5 degrees Celsius again next Thursday, the 15th of January.
10:53And, well, the chance is pretty small across northern Scotland.
10:57But further south, we're in this kind of mid zone, not giving us a lot of indication, that kind of mid zone.
11:02And it's kind of 50-50.
11:03So, yeah, it's just a tricky one to call for the second half of next week.
11:09Got a lot of confidence in the shorter term.
11:11We know that storm is coming.
11:14And that's shown here on this confidence-o-meter, as I like to call it.
11:17This is showing how much confidence we have in the forecast with dates going along the bottom here.
11:23And the average, this line here.
11:27And if we're, the current forecast is in the shaded area, it's this line here.
11:31So the shaded area is showing how much below average the confidence is in the forecast,
11:36how much variability there is, how much uncertainty there is.
11:40And there's a lot of red on this chart.
11:41Sometimes these are all green.
11:42At Christmastime, this was all green because we had high pressure.
11:45And we were very confident in the long-term forecast.
11:48But sometimes, well, we just don't have that confidence in the longer term.
11:52And it's that scrap because of that cold air, because of that warm air battle going on.
11:57As I said, quite a bit of confidence in the shorter term.
11:59And that's storm coming in.
12:01So do keep up to date with the forecast.
12:03Again, do keep up with the warnings on the app and on the website.
12:08See if you could be affected by storm Goretti coming in.
12:11And keep up to date, particularly to head into the weekend as well.
12:14And we firm up on the details of whether the cold air or whether the warmer, less cold air,
12:19it's probably a better way of putting it, arrives and wins out.
12:22Thanks for watching.
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