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This is the Met Office UK Weather forecast for the next 10 days 04/03/2026.

The weather patterns have shifted but how long will that hold and how long will the warmer weather in the east stick around.

Bringing you this 10 day weather forecast is Alex Deakin.

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Transcript
00:00Hello. After such a wet start to the year for some of us and a lot of cloud around as
00:06well,
00:06it's quite nice to be doing a 10-day trend that's dominated by dry weather and there will be some
00:11sunshine to talk about as well. Now, the change has already started. For most of this year,
00:16the jet has been south-shifted, generating low-pressure systems and quite a bit of rain.
00:21It's now reverted back to a more traditional position for this time of year, taking low-pressure
00:26systems up across Iceland and these weather fronts trying to make inroads, but we've got high
00:30pressure blocking things again. Unlike most of this year, though, where the high has been sitting
00:35across Scandinavia, this one's a little bit further south and it is influencing our weather a little
00:40more, keeping things, as I say, largely dry. This is the rainfall accumulations over the next four or
00:46five days and you can see the rain is going to be mostly focused in western Scotland. Parts of
00:51Northern Ireland will see some and much of England and Wales, the rain is going to be very patchy in
00:56this pale blue colour, suggesting less than 0.1 millimetres over the whole four or five days and
01:04many places won't even see that. So, yes, a lot of dry weather to be had away from the northwest
01:09thanks to high pressure. That's not the only thing with the high pressure sitting here and the winds
01:14going clockwise around high pressure. It's drawing up some dust from the Sahara, yes, but also
01:21some warmer air. And that warmer air wafting its way in will allow the temperatures probably to
01:27peak on Thursday across eastern England, getting up to 18, maybe 19 degrees Celsius in a few places
01:34and that warmth extending into eastern Scotland as well with that southerly breeze. But notice it's
01:40not warm everywhere, just eight or nine on the west coast of Scotland. The wind's in a different
01:44direction because we've got a weather front dangled in here, which will be bringing cloud and outbreaks
01:49of rain. And as that weather front pushes against the higher pressure, well, it will steadily fizzle
01:54out as we go into Friday. It could generate a little bit of snow over the tops of the mountains,
01:58nothing unusual about that in March. But notice how that weather front fizzles out, but it does
02:02introduce more cloud and we've switched the wind direction now, more coming down from the north.
02:07So cooler air becoming more widespread by the time we get to Friday. So look at those numbers across
02:13these central parts temperatures only in single figures, having been in the low teens or even mid-teens
02:18on Thursday. Another way to look at that change is to show the temperatures compared to average on
02:23Thursday, well above. But look at that, that cooler air pushing in as we go through Friday. So by Friday,
02:29particularly over northern England and Wales, temperatures significantly below the average,
02:34still hanging on to some milder air across the far southeast. Okay, what goes on beyond that and into
02:40the weekend? Well, high pressure builds back in behind that weakening weather front for Saturday. And again,
02:47with the winds going clockwise, that reintroduces more of a southerly flow across the south. And
02:51there may be one or two showers here and there, but generally speaking, this high pressure will
02:56control our weather through the weekend. Again, a weather front tries to push in, but notice it
03:00doesn't make quite as much progress. So although there'll be some showery rain in the northwest,
03:05many places staying dry. And with the southerly winds back in, it is going to be mild, particularly
03:10where we see some sunshine. Bit of a question mark about where this low pressure system develops.
03:16It's a waving weather front, which always gives us meteorologists a few headaches. But where that
03:21sits is open to question, particularly as we head into the early part of next week. More on that in
03:26a
03:27moment. But generally, the weekend dominated by high pressure, generating a lot of dry weather,
03:32and there will be some sunshine. But there's also going to be quite a bit of mist and low cloud
03:37around
03:37too. Now, this is showing the chance of seeing low cloud on Saturday morning with these eastern parts
03:45of England and parts of the south most likely to see it. But by the time we jump forward to
03:49Sunday,
03:50well, there's an increasing signal, increasing chance of seeing a mist and low cloud, certainly
03:56in the mornings across eastern parts of England and parts of the south and parts of Wales as well.
04:01So that's just telling us that it could be quite cloudy in places through the weekend.
04:05This time of year, there is a bit of power in the sun to get rid of that, but it
04:09might take a while
04:11to clear. So that's probably the biggest question mark about the weekend. How much cloud are we going
04:16to see? With high pressure in control, certainly away from the northwest, most places will be dry
04:20this weekend. And with that southerly flow, it is going to feel quite, probably quite warm when the
04:26sun is out. But that's the big question mark. Will that mist and low cloud stick around and where is
04:32it
04:32going to be? But a stronger signal for it certainly on Sunday morning compared to Saturday morning.
04:37How about as we head into next week? Well, by then, the high has started to edge away, still influencing
04:41things as we go through Sunday night and Monday. Talked about this little area of low pressure
04:45earlier and just where that is going to sit, how it's going to form and how it's going to push
04:50these
04:50weather fronts in, if at all. And that's the biggest uncertainty, perhaps, as we head into the
04:55medium range forecast. The Met Office model has that low just sitting down to the south of the
05:01Republic of Ireland. This is the European model, and it has the low in a slightly different place.
05:05It's all got things just shifted a little bit further north. So a bit of a question mark about
05:10that. And why is there this question mark, that difference between the two? Well, what the chief
05:16meteorologists and deputy chief meteorologists like to do is then analyze where these differences
05:21could have come from. So if we rewind the clock and see where that low kind of generates from,
05:27it's all tied in to the jet stream and this little dip in it, this little trough coming out of
05:32Canada
05:33on Friday. Quite a powerful jet stream developing here. So again, just a subtle change will make
05:40quite a big difference. And then we can compare the Met Office model to the ECMWF model, the European
05:47model. This isn't comparing the surface pressure. This is at 500 hectopascals, but basically the blues
05:53and the greens are showing us where there is a difference. Might be a bit tricky to pick out,
05:58but I'll just zoom in a little bit and show this is now the eastern side of Canada. And you
06:02can see
06:03this little pocket here of the yellows, even oranges, suggesting there's quite a big difference
06:08between the Met Office model and the European model in that area on Friday. And that's important
06:14because as it moves across the Atlantic, that trough will be responsible for developing that little area
06:21of low pressure. So a bit of uncertainty in that kind of early medium range period can lead to more
06:28uncertainty in the position of that low and how it affects our weather into the early part of next
06:32week. So that is one question mark. But beyond that, the weather patterns look fairly, fairly much
06:39in agreement as we go through next week. And that is, we're going to have some kind of setup with
06:44high pressure sitting to the south and eastern low pressure sitting somewhere to the north and to the
06:49west. This is the probability plot, the different flavors of weather as we go through time here
06:55along the bottom. And you can see as we go through next week, that paler blue, that is the dominant
07:00color. That's the most likely setup through Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and even beyond, which is a
07:07southwesterly dominated flow. When you've got a southwesterly flow, that's because you've got high
07:11pressure sitting to the southeast, low pressure sitting to the north and west. Just draw your attention
07:16to the fact that these darker blues become a bit more prevalent as we head towards the end of this
07:2210-day trend period, the back end of next week, which is more unsettled weather with low pressures
07:28more likely to be swinging in across the UK. Not a guarantee, still less than 50% in that setup,
07:34but
07:34just a hint there that we are more likely to see that more changeable picture at the end of next
07:40week.
07:40So certainly for the start of next week, this is the most likely setup with high pressure sitting to
07:45the east of us. Low pressure sitting somewhere up to the northwest. And the flow, the winds coming in
07:50from the southwest, that's where the map is orange, suggesting temperatures are going to be above the
07:54average for the time of year. And it's a very similar setup. In fact, it's the same setup most
07:59likely on Tuesday, even higher percentage chance. And still, even into Wednesday, pretty high chance
08:04that this unbiased southwesterly, where it's a balance between high and low pressure, but the flow
08:09coming up from the southwest is the most likely. And even the second and third most likely, although subtly
08:14different, generally have the same weather patterns with high sitting somewhere to the east of us, low
08:18somewhere to the west. So we're pretty confident that that will be the setup, but which is dominant
08:24will kind of dictate what kind of flavour of weather we have. Beyond that, for Thursday and Friday,
08:32the most likely pressure pattern has that low closer, suggesting low pressures are more likely to be
08:37coming in. Still with the southwesterly flow, so still temperatures above average mostly, but lower
08:43pressure closer by likely to generate a little bit more in the way of rain. So all we can say
08:48about
08:48next week is it's likely to be staying fairly mild with temperatures by day around or a bit above
08:53average. The largely dry conditions certainly for the first half of the week across southern and eastern
08:57parts of the UK, but an increasing probability towards the back end of the week that it will turn a
09:03little bit wetter for all of us. As always, with these 10-day trend projections, that's all they are,
09:11just projections giving you an idea of flavour of what the weather could be like through next week.
09:15For that day-to-day detail, you want to be making sure you keep up to date with the shorter
09:19term
09:19forecasts. And the best way to do that, of course, if you're watching this on YouTube,
09:23is just to hit subscribe. Thanks for watching.
09:25Thank you very much.
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