- 4 hours ago
This is the Met Office UK Weather forecast for the next 10 days 18/03/2026. After the warmest day of the year so far, it cools off slightly during the next few days as high pressure shifts position. However, high pressure remains with us into the weekend with very little rainfall for most. Will this continue into next week or will low pressure return? Bringing you this 10-day weather forecast is Aidan McGivern.
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You may also enjoy:
– Deep dive in-depth forecasts https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGVVqeJodR_ZGnhyYdlEpdYrjZ-Pmj2rt
– Podcasts exploring weather and climate https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGVVqeJodR_brL5mcfsqI4cu42ueHttv0
– Daily weather forecasts https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGVVqeJodR_Zew9xGAqYVtGjYHau-E2yL
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hi there, welcome to the Met Office 10-day trend.
00:03As I record this, it is the UK's warmest day of the year.
00:06So far, the first time 20 Celsius has been exceeded.
00:09And the Met Office app shows sunshine every day where I live for the next five days.
00:14Welcome news following the first two months of this year.
00:19Why did we get here and will it continue?
00:22Well, let's start with the bigger picture.
00:24Here's the jet stream.
00:25Not just the jet stream, but multiple jet streams.
00:28We've got a subtropical jet stream running across North Africa.
00:31And then this is the polar jet, a much more amplified feature running across the Atlantic
00:36and into Europe.
00:37And it's this amplified nature that has led to higher pressure building across the UK
00:43as this extended trough, that's what we call it, this dip in the jet stream,
00:47cuts off from the main flow.
00:48Low pressure forms near the Azores and Portugal.
00:51And over the next few days, well, we can expect high pressure to continue to influence the UK's
00:57weather.
00:57Now, on Wednesday, we've got a southerly airflow.
01:00That's why parts of North Cornwall, North Devon, West Wales have been warmest.
01:04But the winds switch slightly into Thursday.
01:07And that will mean a slightly different distribution of warmth and slightly lower temperatures.
01:14However, high pressure is still in charge.
01:16That means a lot more dry weather, a lot more sunshine to come for many, although not for all.
01:21You'll notice a weak front trapped under the high and bringing extensive cloud as we begin
01:27Thursday across parts of central and southeast Scotland, northeast England, even some spots
01:32of mostly light rain.
01:34That's going to impact the temperatures in the east of Scotland, northeast England, 10,
01:3811 Celsius at best.
01:39But we've got the sunshine elsewhere.
01:41Temperatures into the mid-teens.
01:42And that goes to Northern Ireland, where we have seen cloudier skies during the last couple
01:45of days.
01:46Plenty more sunshine on Thursday and 14 or 15 Celsius.
01:50So, temperatures into the mid or even high teens.
01:53Not quite as high as Wednesday, but a lot of warm sunshine nevertheless.
01:58A bit more of a breeze along the English Channel coast there, coming from the east, helping
02:04to limit those temperatures.
02:05Now, the cloudy zone across central and southeast Scotland, that kind of continues to stay there
02:11through Thursday night.
02:13It will prevent a frost in those places.
02:15But elsewhere, under clear skies, a widespread frost will form.
02:19A chilly start to Friday after the warmth of Thursday afternoon and some mist and fog patches
02:25to begin things.
02:26It's one of those days where you might be scraping the car first thing, but then enjoying the
02:30warm sunshine by the afternoon.
02:32We're talking again about mid to high teens in those warm, sunny spells.
02:37And you'll notice temperatures actually boosted across southeast Scotland, northeast England.
02:43And that's because we lose the cloud cover, sunshine returns, and the winds change direction
02:48slightly.
02:48And that's certainly going to favour eastern parts of Scotland.
02:51And you can see the difference 24 hours make here.
02:54This is the difference in temperatures from Thursday afternoon to Friday afternoon.
02:59The red area is showing where it's going to be considerably warmer, several degrees warmer
03:02across eastern Scotland, northeast England.
03:05Elsewhere, a couple of degrees cooler in places, not significantly.
03:09And because it's effectively going to remain sunny, I doubt we'll notice that much anyway.
03:15But that change in wind direction in Scotland marks a subtle change as we go into the weekend.
03:21High pressure more focused towards the south.
03:23Towards the north, we've got more of a westerly airflow.
03:26And certainly by Sunday, that will allow an area of low pressure, a deep low near Iceland,
03:31but staying well clear of the UK.
03:33Well, that low is going to send a weather front into the northwest of Scotland,
03:36bringing thickening cloud and outbreaks of rain during the day on Sunday.
03:40But further south, high pressure holds on throughout the weekend.
03:44And that means more sunny skies for many places, certainly across England and Wales.
03:49This is Saturday afternoon.
03:51Scotland and Northern Ireland, a bit more medium and upper level cloud,
03:54but you'll notice hardly any rain on the map.
03:57Just a few light showers towards the far north of Scotland.
03:59And barely a cloud on the map for England and Wales.
04:02As a result, 15, 16 Celsius.
04:05Pleasant enough.
04:06A bit cooler on the east coast because we do have an easterly breeze here.
04:09A bit cooler on the northwest coast because we've got a westerly breeze here.
04:12And that westerly breeze picks up somewhat as we go into Sunday morning.
04:16That means it's frost-free across Scotland and Northern Ireland.
04:19We've got thicker clouds starting to build here.
04:21Outbreaks of rain dawn on Sunday in the northwest of Scotland and Shetland.
04:27Further south, England and Wales, a cold start to Sunday
04:30because widely clear skies and light winds will allow temperatures to fall.
04:35Mostly 1 to 3 Celsius, but in some shelter spots below freezing.
04:39So, a cold start in the south, but plenty of sunshine.
04:42And that sunshine continues throughout the day across some southern and southeastern parts of the UK.
04:46But you can see these areas of high and eventually medium level cloud drifting in from the northwest,
04:51bringing with them outbreaks of rain by the afternoon into Scotland and Northern Ireland.
04:56A freshening breeze in the northwest of Scotland, 10 to 13 Celsius here.
05:0114 to 15 further south, a bit high, I suspect, in the southeast where we keep some bright skies until
05:07the end of the day.
05:08But it's dry for England and Wales until the end of the weekend.
05:12And you can see the rainfall accumulations on this map for the next five days from the start of the
05:17forecast
05:17right the way through to the end of Sunday.
05:19Very little rainfall, just a few spots across central parts of Northern Ireland and central Scotland initially.
05:25Then on Sunday, the rain starts to build again in the far northwest,
05:28but it stays clear across England and Wales.
05:31Even so, it's not a great deal of rain in the northwest,
05:34typically 10 to 25 millimetres in the wetter spots by the end of Sunday.
05:39And that's five-day accumulations, whilst it's, well, hardly any rain at all
05:44until the end of the weekend for the southern half of the UK.
05:48Now, the rain in the northwest is being brought by a cold front.
05:51And although it's not going to produce an awful lot of rain further south,
05:55a fairly damp start to Monday, perhaps,
05:58it does clear and allows colder air to arrive from the north-northwest.
06:02And that means we're into a polar maritime airflow,
06:05and that will bring with it a classic mixture of sunny spells and showers.
06:09Typical March weather, with showers composed of rain, sleet, hail, snow.
06:15The further north you are and the higher up you are,
06:17the more likely you are to see some sleet and snow.
06:20Mostly it's higher parts of Scotland and northern England,
06:23perhaps lower parts of the north of Scotland,
06:25and the northern Isles seeing some snow to lower levels.
06:27But really nothing out of the ordinary for March,
06:31nothing to get too excited about, classic March weather.
06:34And it doesn't last long either, this brief colder spell,
06:38because the next Atlantic low and weather front is on its way.
06:43Actually, this is arriving courtesy of a jet stream that has shifted a bit further south.
06:47Remember, it was to the north of the UK before.
06:49By Monday, it's a bit further south.
06:51It's bringing this area of low pressure in.
06:53By the end of Monday, we've got a ridge of high pressure building.
06:56And actually, Tuesday starts fine.
06:58But these weather fronts may well bump into the colder air
07:01and bring some wintry weather over northern hills first thing Tuesday
07:05before the milder air arrives behind.
07:08And brisk winds, outbreaks of rain.
07:11But nothing especially unsettled as this low moves in.
07:15You can see it's not particularly fierce.
07:17And this graphic shows how things are shaping up for the middle of next week.
07:23At this point, a week ahead, we look at multiple model runs.
07:27And this summarises the output for more than 250 model runs.
07:31It shows the most likely weather patterns for Wednesday, the 25th of March.
07:36The most likely is here.
07:37High pressure to the southwest.
07:39More of a breeze from the west-southwest across northern parts of the UK.
07:43Perhaps some outbreaks of rain, but nothing particularly heavy.
07:46The colours here indicate where it's likely to be wetter than normal or drier than normal.
07:51Now, these are the two, second and third most likely weather patterns.
07:55And they both show a bit more of an unsettled period for the middle of next week.
08:00Stronger westerly airflow.
08:01The blues over western parts of the UK.
08:03And especially western Scotland showing where it's likely to be wetter than normal.
08:06So, yeah, it looks likely that around the middle of next week,
08:09we'll see these areas of low pressure moving from the Atlantic.
08:12A reinvigorated jet stream a bit further south than we're expecting over the next few days.
08:17And some unsettled weather.
08:19Thursday looks very similar.
08:21Most likely weather pattern.
08:22High pressure to the southwest, but more changeable further north.
08:26And here we've got low pressure.
08:28Second most likely weather pattern.
08:30Low pressure dipping slightly into Europe as it clears the UK.
08:34And similar for the third.
08:36And that masks some reasonably windy scenarios coming out in the computer modelling at the moment.
08:47And I just want to compare two of the extreme scenarios for the end of next week.
08:53Thursday going into Friday.
08:55And these both are from the European model.
08:58The top one is the control run.
08:59And this is member 20 from the European model.
09:02They both show high pressure on Thursday out to the west of the UK.
09:06And they both show some form of low pressure crossing the UK and diving into the North Sea.
09:10But you can see the low on the bottom picture much more developed.
09:16A deeper area of low pressure likely to bring a more widely windy spell as it goes through the UK.
09:23Initially across northern parts and northwestern parts of the country.
09:26And then diving into the North Sea perhaps bringing some stronger winds around North Sea coast.
09:31But the low in the top image, the control run, really quite a weak feature.
09:36And soon fizzles away as it moves east.
09:39High pressure quickly rebuilding actually by Saturday.
09:42Both look quite similar again.
09:44So there are differences in terms of how well developed these areas of low pressure are likely to be later
09:50next week.
09:51And how windy the weather is across the UK as a result.
09:55They're likely to affect the north and then the east as they clear into the continent before higher pressure returns.
10:01Has to be said, this scenario is looking more likely.
10:05This has more support from the computer modelling than this windier scenario.
10:10But you wouldn't entirely discount that.
10:12Not only does the top image have more support from the computer modelling.
10:16But it has more support from what we call teleconnections.
10:19Those are weather and climate events that are happening elsewhere on the planet.
10:23That can have knock-on effects on the UK's weather.
10:27The jet stream and all of that sort of thing.
10:29And at the moment certain goings on in the stratosphere above the North Pole.
10:34And tropical rainfall, something known as the Madden-Julian Oscillation.
10:38Both those aspects are covered in some of our explainer videos on our YouTube channel if you want to learn
10:42more.
10:43But suffice to say, at the moment, happenings elsewhere on the planet would favour higher pressure closer to the UK
10:50for the end of March than lower pressure.
10:53A weaker jet stream.
10:55But we don't just look at these teleconnections.
10:57We look at what's going on upstream of the UK.
11:00And something interesting is happening over North America at the moment.
11:03A fairly extreme heat wave for the time of year for March across central and western parts of the USA.
11:11Now, this shows the situation into next week.
11:15And it looks likely, this is a map looking down on the North Pole, which is here.
11:19There's the UK.
11:20And here's North America.
11:22And this is a summary through next week of the difference in pressure at around 18,000 feet above the
11:30surface.
11:31But effectively, just to simplify it, this shows a large area of high pressure still prevalent across the USA and
11:39above average temperatures remaining.
11:41Perhaps not as extreme as they're expected this coming Friday.
11:44But nevertheless, very high temperatures across a large part of the USA.
11:49And then we've got this low pressure, this upper trough, dipping into the Atlantic before a ridge again for the
11:56UK.
11:57So you can imagine the jet stream going north over western parts of the USA, dipping south over the Atlantic
12:02and then going north again over the UK.
12:04Now, let's say the heat over the USA is even more intense next week than the computer models reckon at
12:11the moment.
12:12And that would allow the jet stream to be pushed even further north.
12:15And that, like cracking a whip, would force the jet stream further south again.
12:19It'd become more amplified over the Atlantic.
12:21And that subsequently would force the jet stream to move further north over the UK again.
12:26So more intense heat next week over western parts of the USA may result in a stronger high pressure ridge
12:33over the UK.
12:36But that's more than a week away.
12:37A long way off.
12:38Lots has to happen before we get there.
12:40However, what we can say is that the direction of travel appears to favour higher pressure as we go through
12:46to the end of March and the start of April.
12:48And this sums it up.
12:49This shows the most likely weather patterns for the next couple of weeks, similar to those charts I showed a
12:54moment ago,
12:54except that these show for each day whether lower pressure patterns, the blues, are more likely than higher pressure patterns,
13:01which are these reds and oranges.
13:03And it looks like these reds and oranges start to take over for the end of March.
13:07But there's still a lot of uncertainty in it.
13:09And effectively through next week, the latter part of next week, it all comes down to how strong that high
13:14pressure is from the southwest.
13:17And it does look likely that it will be sitting out to the west of the UK.
13:21This is the pressure anomaly through next week for the European model.
13:23It looks likely to be sitting out to the west of the UK with low pressure coming in from the
13:27north and toppling into the continent.
13:29But then if I fast forward to the following week, so this is beyond the 10-day period,
13:33but this is the last couple of days of March and into the start of April.
13:37And it shows the higher pressure stronger over the UK.
13:41So perhaps moving more across the UK.
13:44And that would tie in with everything I've talked about up to this point, which is that towards the end
13:50of March,
13:51after this more unsettled interlude throughout much of next week, towards the end of March into the start of April,
13:57the direction of travel appears to be that higher pressure becomes more likely once again.
14:03But that's all to play for for now because we've got a lot of weather to cover in the meantime.
14:09And you can find all our latest updates on our YouTube channel.
14:11Bye-bye.
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