- 8 months ago
This is an in-depth Met Office UK Weather forecast for the next week and beyond. Heavy rain and strong winds and some hill snow on the way. Bringing you this deep dive is Met Office meteorologist Alex Deakin.
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00:00Met heads unite. Welcome along to the deep dive. My name's Alex Deakin. I'm a meteorologist here at Met Office HQ Exeter in Devon, where it has been an absolutely filthy day, heavy rain and strong winds.
00:15And I've got more of both of those to talk about over the coming days. The worst of the weather, if you don't like wind and rain, is going to transfer from where I am in the southwest of the UK up to the northeast of the UK.
00:28We'll be focusing in on that for the rest of this week, but pretty much all of us will see some rain. Is it then going to turn colder as we go into next week?
00:39There's a good chance that it will turn a bit colder, but question marks about how long that is going to last. We'll go into that in a bit of detail as well.
00:48Welcome along. We love reading your comments, so please keep sending them in.
00:53If you've got any questions, we'll try and answer them on future deep dives or in our live that we do every Friday at 12.15.
01:00That also features a quiz, so test your meteorological knowledge if you're a proper Met head.
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01:29And then we can keep doing these deep dives. As always, plenty to talk about.
01:34But I thought I'd show you some cracking imagery. First of all, a lot of aurora action on Monday night.
01:40Last night, there was a G4 severe geomagnetic storm. Sun spewing out plasma on Sunday.
01:49It hit our outer atmosphere late on Monday and created some cracking images, some beautiful pictures.
01:56You've probably seen them all over social media. This one from Cornwall. Doesn't often get down to Cornwall, but what a cracking picture that was.
02:04Shannon Corbishly shared that on our internal website. I think it was her friend who actually took it.
02:09I'm not sure it was Shannon who actually took it, but just a beautiful, stunning image there.
02:14And I'm sure you've seen plenty across social media.
02:16There's still a chance that this storm is ongoing enough to create some aurora through this evening, Tuesday evening.
02:23But it's mostly likely across Scotland. And it is also mostly likely to be fairly cloudy.
02:29But, you know, we're still kind of in the peak of the sun's solar cycle, starting to dip off a little bit.
02:34But there's still going to be plenty of opportunity, I suspect, for further chances to see the aurora in the coming weeks and months.
02:42But, yeah, beautiful image to start with there.
02:44OK, let's get back to the weather, because that, as I said, has been pretty grim here in the southwest of England.
02:52And let's take a look at what's happened over the past week or so.
02:55We've seen low pressure systems kind of spiraling around us out to the west.
03:00And, well, that is a continuing theme over the next few days.
03:04This one in particular, notice how the cirrus cloud billowing there off Canada.
03:09And just a little feature there as the jet stream drives in, spins up this little area of low pressure.
03:14And that's where we are now. Didn't stop it in time.
03:16That's where we are now, that little low, just sitting down out across to the southwest of the Republic of Ireland.
03:23This line of cloud bringing certainly Devon and Cornwall a pretty wet and windy day.
03:27Parts of Wales, northwestern parts of England and Northern Ireland all fairly soggy.
03:33Yeah, it's not been too grim, has it? In fact, Tuesday a bit brighter than Monday for most.
03:38But what is going to happen over the coming days is a kind of similar pattern is set up with low pressure sitting to the west and not moving very far.
03:49Not really whizzing across the UK like we're used to because everything is blocked out to the east.
03:55It is far from blocked out west, however.
03:58The set up is raging jet stream, that fast moving ribbon of air high up in the atmosphere.
04:04That's kind of always there, but it's particularly pokey at the moment coming out of North America.
04:10Why so lively?
04:12Well, because it's being driven by the temperature contrast and we've got a cold plunge coming in here.
04:18We've seen quite a few of these cold outbreaks driving south from Canada down into America and that cold air digging in, fueling up the jet stream.
04:28If you just take the jet off, it's that contrast between the cold and the warm air down close to the tropics that really fires up the jet stream.
04:36And over the next couple of days, that contrast just increases, pushes the jet further out into the Atlantic, keeps it quite lively.
04:44But watch what's happened to it.
04:46Instead of raging its way across the UK, it is south shifted.
04:50The cold plunge has sunk so far that it's taken the jet further south.
04:54And as it gets over here, it kind of just dribbles away down to the south, creating further unsettled spells of weather in and around the Mediterranean and across Iberia.
05:04And allowing these these lows that it kind of spins up and then it just leaves there hanging around close to the southwest of the UK.
05:12Not really making much ingress, not making much more progress because of what's out here and out across into northern Europe.
05:20We've got a big, chunky, blocking area of high pressure.
05:24A lot of cold air building up under this high.
05:27Under a high pressure, the air is just sinking.
05:29So you've got this cold air at this time of year, obviously, and you're not getting much sunshine, not getting much power to it.
05:33So really cold air here.
05:36Now, over the next couple of days, just watch what happens.
05:39I'll take the pressure sequence off.
05:41I'll take the jet stream off as well.
05:43Actually put the pressure back on because what happens slowly but surely as we go through Wednesday night and into Thursday
05:49is the high continues to build in and it extends closer to the UK and slowly but surely the colder air is also now.
05:58You can see it there seeping away from Scandinavia down across through the northern parts of the North Sea.
06:06And there's isobars squidging together as well.
06:08So it's getting wetter and it's getting windier and it's getting colder in this northeastern corner.
06:13They are pushing together.
06:14Big, chunky area of high pressure.
06:16These lows being taken and then kind of left down to the southwest and it's all kind of squeezing together.
06:22Another way of showing you that through the Hofmoller.
06:25Who doesn't love a Hofmoller?
06:27Courtesy of Dan Harris.
06:29Let's just appreciate how beautiful the Hofmoller is.
06:33Isn't that gorgeous?
06:35Just soak it in for a few seconds.
06:37What are you seeing?
06:38Are you seeing a butterfly?
06:39Are you seeing a peacock?
06:41I'm sure it relates to something what you can see in there.
06:43But I will show you what I can see.
06:45This is a Hofmoller plot.
06:48I say courtesy of Dan Harris.
06:49One of our, the newest chief actually here at the Met Office.
06:53And this is 500 hectopascal graph.
06:58What does that mean?
06:58Well, how high up in the atmosphere do you have to go before you get to 500 hectopascals?
07:03About five and a half kilometers.
07:04So it's about five and a half kilometers up through the sky.
07:08And that's where, what we call kind of the steering flow.
07:12That's the kind of where weather patterns get shifted around.
07:16And what this is plotting, higher up, five and a half kilometers up, is the high and the low pressures.
07:22Now, it's quite complicated, isn't it?
07:24But it is a thing of beauty.
07:25Let's go back in time.
07:26So we're going, this is the time axis down the side here.
07:30This is the current time.
07:32This black horizontal line.
07:35That's today's date.
07:36Going back in time, anything above that.
07:37So we're going back through January and right at the top, actually into last year.
07:41And anything below that line is the future.
07:43We've got about five days worth of, no, it's a week's worth of forecast down below that line there.
07:47So that's going forward in time.
07:49That's going back in time.
07:50And across here, we've got lines of longitude.
07:53So we are here.
07:54This is the zero line.
07:55That's the Greenwich Mean Line.
07:58Greenwich Mean Line?
07:59Greenwich Mean Time or Greenwich Meridian.
08:01Get it right.
08:02So that's where we are.
08:02So we're in the middle here.
08:05Anything this side is what's happening out to the west.
08:08There's North America.
08:10And over here is Europe.
08:12Now, what I'm showing you here is these green blobs.
08:16And that's basically higher pressure.
08:18And you can basically pick out a pattern there where that high has been gradually working its way
08:25down towards the UK.
08:28Meanwhile, out west, things aren't moving.
08:30You've kind of got this stationary line of lower pressure, helped by those cold incursions
08:35coming in across North America, spinning up low pressure systems.
08:38And what we're seeing is that's staying still.
08:41But this high, higher up is coming together and squishing everything together.
08:45And that's also what we're seeing at the surface.
08:46I showed you that earlier.
08:47The high pressure extending its way across from northern Europe and getting closer to the UK
08:54by the time we get to Friday.
08:56The high pressure extending in, bringing its colder air.
08:59The low is still sitting down to the southwest.
09:01Now, that low is going to generate some pretty strong winds across the southwest.
09:04More on that later.
09:05But I'm really showing this because where everything is coming together is across northeastern parts
09:09of Scotland.
09:10And that is the biggest cause for concern over the next few days.
09:15I know we've got a warning out for the winds today.
09:17That's kind of fizzling out now, hopefully.
09:19But we have seen some strong winds today in the southwest.
09:21But the area of concern now moving towards the northeast of Scotland.
09:26Let's have a look at what the weather is actually doing then.
09:29As we go through tomorrow, there's a zone of rain working its way northwards.
09:33Just play that through.
09:35It'll be a wet start.
09:35Some rain tonight in northern Scotland.
09:37But then we see another band of rain moving its way into that zone.
09:41That may ease off for a time.
09:43But notice further pulses then continue to feed in as we go through Thursday.
09:48OK, let's slow this down and just show you the rain pulsing in across eastern Scotland
09:54throughout Thursday.
09:56Increasingly, we are going to see some white on the chart.
09:59We are going to see a bit more snow.
10:00As the colder air pushes in, there will be snow over the hills.
10:04At low levels, it is going to be rain.
10:06But it continues to feed in and continues potentially to build up as we go through Thursday.
10:12And indeed, for most of Friday, further pulses of rain coming in here throughout that time.
10:19All added to by the winds.
10:22So those winds continuing to feed on.
10:24They're picking up that moisture over the North Sea, hitting the mountains, the winds, you know, kind of perpendicular to the coastline and crucially to some of the hills and mountains as well.
10:35And that means you're generating more rainfall.
10:37Those winds pushed up over the hills, generating more rainfall as the air cools and condenses, dropping a lot of rainfall in this part of the world over the course of Wednesday night, Thursday and into Friday.
10:50And that is why we have the warning in place that runs, say, from Wednesday night into Friday.
10:59We're concerned about the rainfall building up.
11:01And how much rainfall are we going to see?
11:03Well, let's take a look at that.
11:05We are initially concerned, as I say, about that rain building up in this part of the world, particularly as we head into Thursday night and Friday.
11:14Let's just zoom in.
11:17And if we look here, you can see those totals building up.
11:22Over 24 hours, quite widely, we're going to see 25 millimetres of rain at lower levels.
11:29But over the hills, over the peaks there, we are looking at 75.
11:32And if we zoom in, we might just see a few peaks there of red.
11:36We could possibly in one or two locations see maybe 100 millimetres of rain, perhaps even a little bit more in some locations.
11:43And certainly those kind of totals likely to cause some problems.
11:47There is one mitigating factor to this, because as the colder air moves in, we're likely to not just see rain.
11:54We are going to see more and more mixed with snow.
11:57And now initially through Wednesday night, most of it will be rain.
12:00But if we look at how cold the air is, you can see initially, we've come back to kind of the here and now.
12:06This is the freezing level.
12:08I see how high up you've got to go before you get to zero.
12:10And you're looking at, well, 1,000 to 1,200 metres.
12:15Now, as we go through tonight and tomorrow, weather front pushes northwards and we see some blues appearing.
12:20The freezing level comes down, but still it's 600 to 800 metres.
12:23You may see a little bit there for over the Scottish hills as that initial pace comes in.
12:30But then it gets a bit milder as that front kind of moves out of the way.
12:33It's not really until we see the influence of the high pressure extending in and that colder air coming in across the North Sea, which happens later on Thursday.
12:41So let's switch models and now move forward a bit through Thursday and into Thursday evening.
12:49Now the levels have come down to 400 metres.
12:51You've only got to go up 400 metres before you get to zero, which means snow may well be settling at 400 metres.
12:57And actually, as we go into Friday, get some slightly colder air getting into the far north east there.
13:02But in that zone where we're looking at all that wet weather, so parts of the Grampians in particular, that level stays at about 400 metres, maybe dipping a little lower.
13:12So we are going to see some snow settling at about 400 metres and above.
13:16And with all that wet weather, that could be quite a bit of snow coming in.
13:20Now, some of the highest roads in that part of the world, the A9, for example, does go up to 400 metres.
13:26So 400 metres, heavy snow and those strong winds, that's not very pleasant to drive through at all.
13:32I think drum the drocket, the A9, goes up to above 400 metres.
13:35So there are going to be some pretty grim conditions on some of the higher routes across Scotland with that snow falling and that strong wind blowing.
13:42How much snow are we looking at?
13:44Well, let's take a look at some of the amounts that we could see.
13:47Again, let's do a 24-hour look.
13:51And again, in this zone here, what are we looking at?
13:58Those yellows there, 10, 20 centimetres, more than 20 centimetre peaks in some locations as we go through Thursday and into Friday.
14:10That's the time we're going to get some of that heaviest snowfall again in that zone.
14:14So it's good in some ways that we're going to see some of the rain locked up as snow because those kind of rainfall amounts can cause serious problems.
14:21It kind of ballpark similar totals that we saw during Storm Babette.
14:25But Storm Babette back in 2023 happened in October when everything was much milder.
14:30So we didn't see much snow with it.
14:31So it's kind of good news that some of this wet weather that's coming in will be locked up in snow.
14:36But we have seen a lot of snow melt recently.
14:39The ground is saturated in this part of the world.
14:42So the heavy rain is likely to cause problems.
14:44That's why we've got that yellow warning in place as we go through the next few days.
14:49And although at low levels and on the coast, we're not going to see huge amounts of rainfall, there is one other factor to contend with when it comes to the winds picking up because they are increasing in this zone.
15:04So the winds will be picking up over the next several days.
15:07That's today.
15:08They don't really change very much.
15:09We've got these gusty winds continuing in this zone.
15:13We're, what, 50, 60, up to, yeah, between 50 and 70 miles an hour, certainly out at sea.
15:19Nothing exceptional for this part of the world.
15:21But that is an unusual direction.
15:23So that's one factor.
15:24If you get the winds always coming in from the same direction, then things get a bit more used to it.
15:28But that's a different direction.
15:30Coming in from the southeast is fairly unusual.
15:33So that's one.
15:34Although the wind strength, the numbers themselves, not exceptional.
15:37That is a factor that could play into creating some disruption.
15:41And then you've got something else.
15:44The waves.
15:45So on the coast, as I said, at low levels, rainfall amounts, not huge.
15:49But we are talking about some significant waves as we go through Wednesday and into Thursday.
15:53Again, particularly in this northeastern corner, exceptional waves out at sea.
15:58But even close to the coast there, we could be in this zone where we could be seeing five-metre wave heights crashing onto the coast of Aberdeenshire.
16:06So that is also another factor that we need to consider when we're talking about the next few days.
16:11So there's lots going on across the northeast of Scotland.
16:14Some heavy rain, some strong winds, some large waves, and quite a bit of hill snow.
16:19All kind of acting together.
16:21Although you could argue that snow is kind of counteracting a little bit because it will lock up some of that rainfall.
16:26But eventually, of course, it's got to melt.
16:28What if or when it turns colder?
16:31And that's a big question because when is it going to turn milder or is it going to stay colder?
16:36That's the big question for the outlook.
16:39So we're concerned about northeast Scotland for the next few days.
16:42And then, generally speaking, well, the weather patterns are only going to subtly shift as we head into the weekend.
16:48What are we looking at on the bigger picture?
16:51We talked about the jet stream already fired up.
16:55And it doesn't really look like easing down.
16:58We've got another cold plunge coming down across northern parts of North America.
17:04So, again, the jet stream remains pretty angry, even as we go through into the weekend.
17:09Some of the strongest winds in the jet.
17:11Now, these are the winds high in the atmosphere, of course, but they are dictating what is going on for us.
17:16We get a little dip in the jet stream here as we go through the weekend.
17:20And that actually spins up another area of low pressure.
17:23But this time, it's not as close to the UK.
17:26It's more out in the Atlantic.
17:28It's further away.
17:29So it's not as influential.
17:31And then the jet's slipping southwards but got some bit more momentum to it down here as we go into the weekend compared to what's happening.
17:39So instead of that kind of southwest-northeast shift, now the jet's slipping down here.
17:44And that's allowing the higher pressure to build further north to the north of the UK.
17:50The pressure is building in here.
17:52And that is allowing the winds to switch more to an easterly.
17:54The flow is backing around more to an easterly.
17:57And that will allow things to turn a bit colder across the UK.
18:02Let's take a look at what we're looking at in terms of our temperatures for the next few days.
18:07Close to average for most of this week.
18:10High single figures, maybe double digits across the south.
18:13Same goes Wednesday, Thursday.
18:15By the time you get to Friday, you start to see things a bit colder across more eastern areas.
18:19But if we fast forward a couple of days, by the time we're getting into the weekend, those numbers are down.
18:25They're down below average and certainly by Sunday on that east coast, three, four degrees.
18:29And it may be even lower by the time we get to Monday.
18:31So we're influencing more and more as that high pressure is building in from the north.
18:35We're seeing more of an easterly wind coming in.
18:38And that is going to lower the temperatures.
18:40Try and show you that in another way, if I can.
18:44Looking at the ensembles and how the temperatures could be changing over the course of the next few days.
18:52So this is where we run the model many, many times.
18:54Each of these little green lines represents one of those model runs or a different member.
19:00So you can see you've got a strong green line there.
19:04We are looking, what, just to the south of London here.
19:06Strong green line.
19:07And all the ensemble members kind of agreeing that temperatures for the next few days, they go up and down with the max and the min.
19:12But they do show that there's a definite trend there.
19:15You can see that trend.
19:17Colder conditions are coming in as we go through the weekend and to the early part of next week before it gets very messy.
19:22Then you've got a very messy signal for the middle part of next week.
19:26And that's where things start to diverge.
19:29We're not in agreement.
19:30Pretty solid agreement.
19:31I can go further north.
19:34Again, quite solid agreement.
19:35And then it gets messy, but still generally colder than it has been.
19:40And if we go somewhere further west, again, quite strong agreement.
19:44Gets quite messy.
19:44A messy signal for the middle part of next week.
19:47But let's come back down here because you can see it most clearly there.
19:51That signal.
19:53Is it going to be an easterly next week?
19:54Is it going to be a westerly?
19:55Certainly the easterly picks up through the weekend.
19:58What about into the following week?
19:59Well, the jury is still out.
20:01Certainly doesn't look like we're going to see strong easterly winds lasting.
20:04That's not the most favoured solution at this stage.
20:08This is the most likely flavour of weather as we go forward in time.
20:15And if we just look at what we're looking at into the weekend, it's high pressure to the north.
20:20We talked about the jet stream slipping further south, allowing the high pressure to build across the north.
20:24That is the most likely flavour of weather.
20:27High pressure up here.
20:28Weak easterly winds.
20:29So it's not strong easterly winds.
20:31Weakening easterly winds coming in for the weekend.
20:34It could bring some, certainly some snow showers.
20:37Of course, eastern areas where the temperature is only three or four degrees as a max.
20:40So we could see some wintry showers in parts of the east through the weekend, certainly.
20:45As we go into next week, well, still on Monday, the most likely pressure pattern is that.
20:49But notice these blues then start to become bigger.
20:54Those blues, those pale blues, are with the low to the south getting closer.
20:59So with the low pressure starting to push in again, and that changes the wind direction from a light easterly back to where we are now with something of a southerly.
21:08And there's about even between that easterly continuing or whether the southerly comes in as well.
21:16I can show you that again here with the most likely pressure patterns through next week.
21:21This is Friday, strongest chance that the low is in charge.
21:27But as we go into the weekend, the most likely pressure pattern is for that weak easterly and temperatures to be below average.
21:35But notice the second most likely, only 11% has still got that low not far away.
21:39So it all depends on how strong the jet stream is and where those lows are as to how much of an influence they're having on the UK.
21:46And then as we go into next week, let's pause it there.
21:50Let's go back to Monday because Monday is quite interesting.
21:52The most likely one on Monday is still that weak easterly flow and things colder than average.
21:58But the second most likely, and there's not a lot in it, and that one, the third most likely, isn't far off.
22:04We add up the chances of those two and they're actually higher than that.
22:07So even by Monday, it's a bit of a coin toss between whether temperatures are average or on the cold side still.
22:15Then as we go forward, the more likely scenario then starts to be that mixture of the low and the easterly, and there's never much in it.
22:23Look at that for Wednesday.
22:2429% chance, 29% chance.
22:26So there's not a lot we can say definitively about beyond the weekend and into next week.
22:33Some of the models are keeping that easterly and keeping it on the chill side.
22:37Many of them are back to where we are at the moment with temperatures close to average.
22:41And it's just too early to say which one is which.
22:43We may know more by tomorrow.
22:44And we'll have more in the 10-day trend for you on that tomorrow.
22:48I think it's Aiden.
22:49I'm not completely sure.
22:51But, yeah, we'll have more on that in the 10-day trend tomorrow.
22:55So make sure you stay tuned for that.
22:57But definitely looks like it's going to get colder for the weekend, and there could well be some wintry showers into parts of the east.
23:02Before that, we're concerned about that rainfall building up across northeastern parts of Scotland.
23:08Right, that's pretty much it for this week's Met Office Deep Dive.
23:12Thank you very much for watching.
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23:26Or we can go into more detail during our live broadcast, which will be at 12.15 on YouTube on Friday.
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23:35So, again, yes, thank you very much for watching, and I'll see you again soon.
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