- 4 hours ago
This is an in-depth Met Office UK Weather forecast for the next week and beyond.
High pressure is in control this week but there is still plenty to talk about: from static shocks to meteor showers.
Bringing you this deep dive is Met Office meteorologist Alex Burkill.
High pressure is in control this week but there is still plenty to talk about: from static shocks to meteor showers.
Bringing you this deep dive is Met Office meteorologist Alex Burkill.
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NewsTranscript
00:00High pressure is in control this week, but we may be in for a bit of a shock, quite literally.
00:06More on that in a second.
00:07But yes, thank you for joining me for this week's Met Office Deep Dive.
00:11I'm Alex Burkill, presenter and meteorologist here at the Met Office,
00:15coming to you from our headquarters here in Exeter like we do every Tuesday.
00:19Welcome along if this is your first.
00:21Welcome back if you watch many of these deep dives.
00:24So keep those comments, these questions coming.
00:26I will be answering some of them later on, and we'll be answering some of them in the Weather Studio
00:30Live on Friday.
00:32Make sure you hit the like button, make sure you hit subscribe if you don't already,
00:36and make sure you also share this with anyone who you think might find it interesting.
00:40Because, well, when I started prepping this week's deep dive yesterday,
00:45with high pressure, the weather looking quite quiet.
00:48We're not meant to say the quiet word, it kind of jinxes things, but it was looking pretty quiet.
00:53I was struggling a little bit as to what I would put in this deep dive,
00:57but I have plenty to talk about, lots of interesting bits to cover.
01:01In fact, I may be speaking a little prematurely, but I think this could be my best deep dive yet.
01:07So let's get going.
01:08And starting off, I just want to have a little bit of a look at the overview of what's happening,
01:13because it helps tell the story for some of the things that I'm going to be talking about coming up.
01:19So, at the moment, as I mentioned, we have high pressure, and it's, well, it's largely fine and largely dry.
01:24There has been some rain around, there's a bit of rain yesterday, some rain also earlier on today,
01:29but most places have a largely dry picture.
01:32And it's, yes, because we have high pressure through the next few days.
01:37If I get rid of the jet stream, and if I just stick with the pressure pattern, and if I
01:41just run it through,
01:42you can see this high pressure, which is sitting to the north of the UK.
01:46And there are some low pressure systems nearby.
01:49There's one towards the southwest, but it's really the high pressure that's dominating the setup.
01:54If I just pause it here, and what we have as we go through Wednesday into Thursday is a sort
02:00of a mega block.
02:01It's not your perfect example, and it's not the easiest to see it when looking at the surface pressure pattern,
02:07but you can see it's an omega block because we have low pressure here, low pressure here,
02:11and then around it, it kind of makes this a mega symbol.
02:16Here we go, I did it wrong.
02:18We have the flow doing this sort of a mega symbol, which is why it gets its name.
02:24And it's this situation that's going to stick with us for quite a while.
02:28It's going to bring lots of dry weather, well, through the rest of the week, through the rest of the
02:33month, to be honest.
02:34It's looking pretty dry indeed.
02:35I'll show you a few things signalling that as we go through.
02:38But before we get there, I did highlight this low pressure earlier, and let's just look at how close it
02:45is towards us.
02:46Let's scroll back a little bit.
02:48Let's go to mid-morning on Wednesday.
02:52And you can see, whilst towards the north of the UK, high pressure, relatively slack flow,
02:58we do have these easterly winds come in.
03:00Let's put the easterly winds.
03:01Easterly winds coming in across much of England, Wales, Northern Ireland as well.
03:05And the closer you are towards this low in the southwest,
03:08you can see those isobars are packed quite tightly together.
03:11And those gusts, those strong winds in parts of the southwest are particularly strong.
03:16And they've already started to pick up.
03:18It's already been pretty blustery here today in the southwest.
03:22And it's going to continue to be windy as we go through the rest of Tuesday overnight and into Wednesday
03:28as well.
03:29Let's have a look and see if I can pick out a couple of those wind gusts items.
03:36Let's zoom into the southwest.
03:38And here I have my gust graphic, which I'm going to run through.
03:42And it's not the windiest day by any means.
03:45We're not talking stormy or anything like that.
03:48But you can see some strong winds out towards the southwest of us.
03:51But, ooh, here we go.
03:52If I just scroll back a little bit.
03:56And, yeah, there we go.
03:58Over, well, signaling Dartmoor.
04:00We have some strong gusts being highlighted by the model here.
04:0350 to, well, close to 70 miles per hour gusts.
04:06We've seen some deeper pinks in the 60 to 69 mile per hour section there over Dartmoor.
04:12And as we run through, we can see also a little bit further west, deeper into Cornwall.
04:17I think I saw some pinks, yeah, popping up earlier on in the day.
04:21So some strong gusty winds coming through.
04:24Now, it's not showing up that clearly because it's not exceptionally windy.
04:28We don't have a warning out.
04:30Probably don't need one.
04:31But there could be some localized impacts.
04:33And, actually, to help me illustrate that, the chief meteorologist, Steve, today created this nice little image for me to
04:40show where some of the impacts from the strong gusts could be as we go through the rest of Tuesday
04:45and into Wednesday.
04:47So it's particularly around the routes that go over the higher ground that we could see the strong gusts becoming
04:53impact for.
04:54So the A30, the A386 as we go through Devon and into Cornwall.
04:58And, interestingly, as I highlighted earlier, across Dartmoor, yes, we're expecting some particularly strong winds, 60, 70 miles per hour
05:07perhaps in the most exposed spots.
05:09We don't have a vast network of observation sites in that area, so probably won't be captured by our observations.
05:15But, nonetheless, it is likely to be quite windy.
05:19And, yeah, it could also be a crosswind on some of the routes as well, so that could cause extra
05:24problems.
05:25But, interestingly, if you're travelling, say, from east to west, you go over Dartmoor and you have the very strong
05:32winds.
05:32Then, as you travel further westwards towards, like, Launceston, and the winds drop out because of shelter from the orography.
05:40The orography really highlighted with the strength of the winds here, with the moors down here in Devon and Cornwall.
05:45And so you kind of get this Launceston lull, if you will, in the winds.
05:50But then, suddenly, as you head further west towards, like, Bodmin Moor, for example, and the winds will suddenly pick
05:55up again.
05:56So that could catch a few people out.
05:57So I wouldn't be surprised if there is some disruption in parts of the southwest through the rest of the
06:02day and more so tomorrow, really, when those winds really strengthen.
06:06And even further east, across some southern parts of England, it is going to be quite windy as well.
06:11So some strong, gusty winds to watch out for, despite the fact that high pressure is the main talking point.
06:16And it's largely dry, largely fine, largely, well, quite sunny, really, for many of us through the next few days.
06:24So let's keep going with the pressure pattern.
06:27And because I just wanted to talk about where our air is coming from, and that's important for how dry
06:34it's going to be.
06:35So a couple of things.
06:37So we have our high pressure up here.
06:39Remember, our wind's going in a clockwise direction around your high pressure.
06:47And so they're coming in from, I had to correct, I'll check myself there, should be able to say that
06:52without thinking.
06:54And so if I put the winds on, we're getting an easterly wind.
06:58As I mentioned before, the easterly winds could be causing some problems in the southwest with the strength of them.
07:03But that easterly wind is also going to be dragging in some particularly dry air.
07:09So if we get our air coming in from the west, it's traveling over the Atlantic.
07:14So it's picking up some of that moisture from the ocean.
07:18But if it's coming in from the east, particularly if it's coming in from across the near continent,
07:23now, admittedly, some of the air is coming down more the North Sea,
07:26but some of it's wrapping around across parts of Scandinavia and coming towards us across the land.
07:32And in doing so, it's then drying.
07:34And it's that drier air that could lead to something interesting.
07:38Now, I can show where the air is coming from if I look at our trajectories.
07:44And I've used these plots before in a previous deep dive when I was looking at where the source for
07:49our heat was coming from
07:51when it was back in the summer and we were looking at heat waves.
07:55And this shows something quite similar in as much as when we have these warm spells,
07:59people might, well, incorrectly assume that we're dragging in warm air from the south.
08:06But that's not the case.
08:07It wasn't the case with the majority of the heat waves we saw last year.
08:10And it's not the case in this instance.
08:12If we track the air that's coming towards us back and find its source, it takes a slightly surprising track,
08:19perhaps.
08:20So what we have here are our trajectories.
08:23And the different colours show the height at which the air is reaching the UK.
08:31So what we can see is the purples are showing, and this is for the air that's reaching the UK
08:37this afternoon.
08:38So Tuesday at four o'clock in the afternoon.
08:41And so the purples are showing the air near the surface.
08:44And then up to the greeny to the yellows, the yellows are showing where the air at a thousand metres
08:51up at four o'clock this afternoon,
08:54where it's coming from.
08:55And then apart from one little bit that's reaching us near the surface, the majority of the air, like I
09:00showed you before,
09:00is coming from across the continent.
09:03And then before that, it comes down southwards from, well, across north of Scandinavia, really.
09:09So not, like I say, your warm direction.
09:12But because as it's coming towards us, that air is sinking and lowering down.
09:17You can see these high projections.
09:19You can see that air that's, you know, a few days ago was much, much higher up in the atmosphere,
09:24about four, five, six kilometres higher up.
09:27And then it's sinking as it comes towards us.
09:30And due to adiabatic heating, it's warming up as it comes down, because as the air sinks, it gets compressed.
09:38And so that leads to a warming of around 10 degrees per kilometre.
09:43And so it's no wonder then that the air, by the time it reaches us, is going to be quite
09:47warm,
09:47particularly with a lot of the sunshine around and the dry air that it's, or how dry it's going to
09:54be,
09:54because it's crossing the near continent as we get nearer to it, reaching us.
09:59Now, with slight shifts in the high pressure through the next few days, by the time that we get towards
10:04the end of the week,
10:05so this is Friday, again, four o'clock, the exact track that it's taking has changed ever so slightly.
10:11It's more coming from just down the North Sea, but it's still clipping the near continent before it comes towards
10:17us on that easterly track.
10:19But, yeah, an interesting trajectory that it takes.
10:22And it is really leading to some very dry air across many parts of the UK through the next few
10:28days.
10:29Here I have a chart which, thanks to Dan Holley, one of the deputy chiefs who has appeared on deep
10:35dives quite recently, actually,
10:36he created, or he put this together for me.
10:38So thank you to him for all the hard work he put in for this deep dive, which really helped
10:43me out.
10:44And these show relative humidity for the next three days at both four o'clock in the afternoon and four
10:50o'clock in the morning.
10:51So we have Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday morning, and then Wednesday afternoon, Thursday morning, Thursday afternoon and Friday morning.
10:57And the deeper reds show where the humidity is lower.
11:02And so you can see at the moment across many places, humidity is around, well, the deeper reds showing it's
11:08around like 25, 30 percent in quite a few places.
11:11So really dry air.
11:13And, you know, in many places, coastal parts, for example, it's a bit higher, but still only around like 50,
11:1960 percent.
11:19So still pretty dry.
11:21Now, as you would expect overnight, as we go through Tuesday and into Wednesday, the humidity rises because the air
11:29is cooling.
11:30But interestingly, it then lowers again as we go through Wednesday.
11:36And also Thursday, really dry air across many places.
11:39Western Scotland looks really dry compared to the preceding days and across southern parts as well.
11:44So really dry air.
11:46Now, I mentioned at the start that could lead to us getting some static shocks, because when we get an
11:54easterly, when we have really dry air across us, well, that increases the chance of this static buildup.
12:00Why is that?
12:00Well, there are electrons around and they build up.
12:04And it's that process of the moving from one surface to another.
12:08So from your skin to clothes to a car door, for example, that leads to that static shock.
12:13But when there's water vapor in the air, high humidity, there's always water vapor of some sort.
12:17But when the humidity is high and there's a lot of water vapor in the air, that helps the static
12:23charge, the electricity kind of just leak away harmlessly.
12:27But when there isn't as much water vapor in the air, then it sticks around and builds up on you
12:33until you then touch another surface.
12:35And so that's when you can feel that that big static shock.
12:38So don't be surprised if you get a few more of those as we go through this week compared to
12:44what you normally see.
12:45Worth bearing in mind, however, that it's more common during the colder months.
12:50So winter, it's more of an issue because if we get an easterly, yes, the air would still be very
12:55dry, but it would be markedly colder.
12:57And colder air can hold less moisture.
13:00And so the air is even drier.
13:02Add to that, during the winter months, you're more likely to have your heating on and that will dry out
13:07the air even further, particularly indoors because you're getting that colder air, which then you're drying, taking some of that
13:12moisture away from it.
13:13So it is more common during the winter months, but nonetheless, with the very dry air that we have across
13:18us through the next few days, yes, there is an increased chance of the odd static shock.
13:24Then one other thing, when I was looking at these humidity charts that I have here, I've talked about the
13:30humidity rising through the nights.
13:33But actually, if we look at the one for Friday morning, you can see there are some reds, so some
13:38lower humidity levels being highlighted over the higher ground, particularly like the Cairngorns, for example.
13:45And so that made me think, if I see something like that, I'm thinking inversion.
13:50So let's look at a Tefigram profile for around the Cairngorns for the next couple of days.
13:57So we have Wednesday in blue, Thursday in green, and Friday in red.
14:02Now, I've shown Tefigrams in deep dyes before, and every time I'm like, we should do a proper explainer about
14:08Tefigrams.
14:09Today isn't the day. I will do it another day, maybe. I might leave it for one of the others.
14:14But if you've not seen a Tefigram before, what they're showing is a profile of the air as it's travelling
14:18up through the atmosphere.
14:20And this is forecast profiles, like I say, for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
14:24Today, the block solid line is your air temperature, and your dotted line is your dew point, which gives us
14:30a sign of how humid, how dry the air is going to be.
14:34The greater the difference between your air temperature and your dew point, your dew point depression, the greater the difference,
14:42the drier the air is.
14:44And as I say, we're going up through the atmosphere.
14:47So blue, Wednesday, is pretty dry, but you can see the difference between those lines gets greater and greater as
14:54we go through the next few days.
14:55So the air is really drying out.
14:57And what you can see is this temperature inversion.
15:00So usually the temperature is dropping as you go up through the atmosphere.
15:04It's cooling down, as I just talked about with adiabatic heating and cooling, because the air gets less compressed as
15:13it rises up.
15:15But sometimes you get this temperature inversion where there's warmer air aloft, and that can cap things and trap things
15:23and trap the air from changing too much nearer the surface, because there's less mixing as a result.
15:29But if you get above the inversion by climbing up, say, a mountain, the Kengorns, for example, if you go
15:35above it, then you end up in this really dry slot.
15:38And so that's why the humidity over the Kengorns, as we wake up on Friday morning, with that inversion really
15:43digging in, that's why there's likely to be some really high levels of humidity as we go that high up.
15:50When you get inversions, you can sometimes get above the cloud and looking down.
15:54You can see a specter, maybe.
15:56I'm getting carried away.
15:57But, yeah, so worth checking that out.
15:59Maybe if you live nearby, you might want to go up the mountains on Friday.
16:03But with the dry, sunny weather, do you need to take precautions?
16:07I'll talk about that in a second.
16:10So lots of dry weather to come as we go through the next few days.
16:14And as I mentioned, actually, lots of dry weather to come through the rest of this month, really.
16:19From my point of view, and lots of people, we're enjoying the dry, sunny weather.
16:24It was a long winter, lots of rain.
16:26And so to have a prolonged, warm, sunny spell, many people are grateful.
16:31Lots of people don't feel that way.
16:33Lots of people struggle during the dry, sunny periods.
16:35Farmers, gardeners, for example.
16:37And so I am acutely aware that this isn't good news for a large chunk of people.
16:43So I can just tell you the forecast.
16:46That's all I can do.
16:47But in terms of when we're going to see any significant rain, there's not a lot in the forecast for
16:52the next few days.
16:53Here is our weather pattern member index, and the red's indicating higher pressure.
16:57Remember, high pressure means the air is sinking, so less cloud, just a more settled setup.
17:02And that looks generally quite dominant.
17:05There are hints of something a little bit bluer as we go through the weekend and into early next week,
17:09but not really a great change.
17:11I'll show you that in a second.
17:12I think I haven't got onto Saturday.
17:15But, yeah, generally, the high pressure theme looks set to continue as we go through towards the beginning of May.
17:22You can see some blues highlighted again by the following weekend.
17:27You can see the bank holiday.
17:29Classic.
17:30It's almost like the weather knows.
17:32But still, to be honest, I think the generally fine-settled weather is likely to continue.
17:36And if we look at this in a slightly different way, and this one, great, I got it right.
17:42If we put our rain probability, and if we dart towards the end of April, here's the 29th.
17:48Oh, it's still going.
17:49So that's the 1st of May, but let's go back to the 29th.
17:52And you can see with our 1st, 2nd, and 3rd most likely setups for that far ahead,
17:58high pressure still nearby in all three of them, still the dominating weather,
18:02and particularly the 1st and 2nd most likely setups, a really dry picture for many parts of the country.
18:08There doesn't look set to be much in the way of rain for many places as we go through the
18:14rest of the month.
18:15And it has already been pretty dry so far this month for some places.
18:21Not everywhere, but some places have been pretty dry.
18:25So here I have a map looking at April 2026 so far, so up to and including the 20th,
18:31so the 1st 2 3rds of the month, and comparing the rainfall to what the average is for the whole
18:38month.
18:38So at this stage, around 67% would be on average, if that makes sense.
18:44I'm sure it does.
18:45Now what you can see, many places, particularly down the eastern side of England,
18:49have these really dark browns where we've had less than 20% of the average rainfall for April.
18:56And remember, if it was an average month, we would have had around 67% by this point.
19:01So really, really dry.
19:03In fact, some places, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, for example,
19:06have only had around 5% of their average April rainfall in the first 2 3rds of the month.
19:13Cambridge, I think, Cambridges had only 2mm of rain recorded,
19:17and Bedfordshire's had even slightly less than that.
19:20And both these counties are on course to have one of their driest Aprils in record.
19:26I think it's both of their second, likely to be both their second driest Aprils on record.
19:312007 was even drier for many places, particularly in this part of the country.
19:37In fact, I think Bedfordshire's on course to have its 6th driest month of any time in the year,
19:44and Cambridge's on course to have its 5th.
19:46So it has been really, really dry in some places,
19:49which is why I mentioned the farmers.
19:51Some people are really struggling with how dry it's been.
19:56Not everywhere, though.
19:57Western parts of Scotland.
19:59Some stations here have had one of their wettest first 2 3rds of April,
20:05with the dry weather that we're going to see through the latter stages of the month.
20:10I don't think these colours are going to get much deeper.
20:13They're not going to change a huge amount.
20:15And so I don't think it's going to be anywhere's wettest April on record or anything like that.
20:19But yeah, quite a contrast from northwest to southeast across the country in terms of rainfall,
20:26and comparing that to average for April so far.
20:30And yeah, not a huge amount more rain to come.
20:33But I don't think I got this far when I was looking at the bigger picture.
20:37So let's look back at the synoptic pattern.
20:40We have high pressure across us.
20:42Lots of fine, dry weather to come.
20:45And then as we go towards the weekend, there is a weather system,
20:49a front getting close towards us.
20:51Let's put cloud and rain on.
20:53And so a bit of cloud building.
20:55There probably will be some outbreaks of rain out towards the west,
20:58maybe also towards the northeast.
21:00But sandwiched in between, a lot of fine weather as we go into the weekend.
21:03Exactly how close those two systems are going to get, a bit uncertain.
21:07But yeah, it's not looking particularly wet at all.
21:10Just a little bit of rain here and there.
21:13And then as we go into Sunday as well,
21:16perhaps a bit more cloud maybe than we've seen through some recent days.
21:19And a few spots of rain again towards the west mainly and towards the northeast.
21:23But generally, it's looking dry.
21:25And if we put the winds on as well, oh, don't know what's happened there.
21:29If we put the winds on, you can see it's pretty light winds across many parts,
21:34lighter than it has been earlier on this week.
21:36I've talked about the strong gusty winds that we have across parts of the south-southwest at the moment.
21:42The winds are going to be markedly lighter as we head through the weekend.
21:45And that's good news for anyone who's taking part in the London Marathon, which is this Sunday.
21:51Because conditions at the moment are looking pretty ideal in as much as it's not going to be especially warm.
21:58It's not going to be chilly.
21:59Well, maybe a bit cool to start off with, but not especially warm.
22:03And the winds aren't looking very strong, which is good.
22:06I hate running when it's windy.
22:08And it's also looking dry.
22:09So great for spectators to come out and celebrate.
22:12There will be some sunshine breaking through, but also a fair bit of cloud at times.
22:16So, yeah, conditions looking great.
22:18If you are taking part, a big good luck to you.
22:22I'm kind of jealous.
22:24Then let's look at temperatures, however.
22:26Here we go.
22:27Now, if we look at temperatures, and taking London, for example,
22:31have our maximum and minimum temperatures for the next few days.
22:34And you can see those maximum temperatures are rising as we go through the end of the week.
22:38High teens, low 20s, definitely not out of the question.
22:42There is a bit of a dip down, though, as we go through the weekend.
22:45So, yeah, Sunday for the Marathon, 16.
22:47That's a pretty pleasant temperature, I think, when it comes to running.
22:51And by night, the temperatures are creeping up a little bit, I guess.
22:55Slight trend upwards.
22:56And so it shouldn't be too chilly to start off with as you're heading towards the start either.
23:01So, yeah, like I say, fairly decent conditions for the London Marathon this weekend.
23:08Now, with the fine, sunny weather that many of us are enjoying through the next few days,
23:15there's always the caveat.
23:16We have some high tree pollen levels.
23:18And we also have some high levels of UV coming up through the next few days.
23:24So, it's worth highlighting at this time of year that the sun or the strength of the sunlight,
23:32the sun UV, is perhaps a bit stronger than many people expect.
23:37Many weather presenters, meteorologists, we talk about the sun's strength changing,
23:41which isn't technically true.
23:43No matter the time of year, the time of day, the strength coming from the sun doesn't actually change a
23:48huge amount
23:49because it's still pumping out the same amount.
23:51It's more the tilt and the direction of the earth and where we're facing the sun, that changes.
23:58And also, the real kicker when it comes to how much UV we're getting on the surface
24:04is how much of the Earth's atmosphere the sun's rays needs to get through.
24:11The thicker the amount of atmosphere, the ozone does a really good job at protecting us from UV rays.
24:17But the thicker amount of the atmosphere, the less UV is getting towards us.
24:21So, when we're tilted away more from the sun at later parts of the day or earlier parts of the
24:27day,
24:27so not during the middle part of the day, again, we're not as directly facing it,
24:33then the UV levels are lower.
24:35But at this time of year, I just wanted to highlight this is a chart showing a typical peak UV
24:40index for southern UK.
24:42And here we are, late April, if we follow it up, we're around the 5.5, almost close to 6
24:50mark.
24:50And if we track it across, that's similar to what we're getting around mid to late August.
24:55And it's a common misconception that UV and warmth are tied in or directly linked.
25:05And there is correlation.
25:06Obviously, the sunnier it is, the higher the UV levels will be, and also the warmer it's going to be.
25:14But we see higher levels of UV earlier than we see the highest temperatures in the UK.
25:20There's that delay because of the sea surface temperatures being cold and it's taking a while for the air to
25:26warm up and the land to warm up.
25:28And you need the longer, longer days in order for us to reach that peak heating, really.
25:33But the peak days when it comes to our UV strength is around the summer solstice, when the day is
25:40at its longest,
25:41and the northern hemisphere is pointing most directly towards the sun.
25:45And so the atmosphere is thinnest in terms of the amount that the rays need to pass through to get
25:51towards us.
25:52But even at the moment, yes, UV levels are really creeping up.
25:56And with a lot of fine sunny weather around through the next few days, don't be caught out because some
26:03people will be.
26:04I can show you that if we get our UV levels up.
26:08And here I've put a few places on for the next couple of days.
26:11But let's look ahead to Tuesday.
26:14And all of the UK, it's either moderate, but probably on the higher end of moderate, or high towards the
26:20south.
26:21So it's the first time that we'll have had high levels of UV so far this year.
26:25And even though it's not as warm as it is typically during August time, when UV levels are similar, it's
26:35still likely to cause some issues.
26:38It's been a long winter for many people.
26:41Our sun hasn't started to get used to acclimatized to the sun so much, and so you're more susceptible to
26:48burning.
26:48People maybe don't take it as seriously because it isn't as warm or as hot outside.
26:54But if you're out in the sun, you probably will need to take precautions through this week and into next
27:00week as well.
27:01Now, obviously, some UV is good for you.
27:05Vitamin D is essential.
27:07But too much can be really damaging to your skin, damaging to your eyes as well.
27:12So, you know, wear sunglasses, wear hats, use sunscreen, that kind of thing.
27:16So just be aware that there are some high levels of UV around through the next few days.
27:20Alex Deethan did a really interesting explainer about UV, how it works, and what it means, and how to protect
27:26yourself.
27:27I'll put that in the comments, and you can check that out at a later date.
27:30Don't go watch it now.
27:31I've still got a little bit left of the deep dive to get through.
27:34Now, I mentioned sea surface temperatures earlier.
27:37There is always that lag, isn't there, at this time of year.
27:41With the fine, sunny weather, you may be heading towards the beach.
27:44It will be a bit fresher, maybe a bit more comfortable, perhaps, around coastal parts,
27:48because the sea takes longer to heat up than the land does.
27:52And so the sea will still have a bit of a chill to it.
27:56And so, yeah, just to highlight that, yeah, the sea surface temperatures are around 8 to 12 degrees,
28:01depending where you are in the UK.
28:03So just be aware that it's still a bit of a chill to things.
28:07Then, I think I've almost finished.
28:09Just a couple more things to talk about, just checking what I've missed.
28:14And I've got this lovely picture up, which was sent to me by one of my colleagues, Nick Dunstan.
28:20Thank you so much.
28:20This is a picture of the waxing crescent moon from a couple of nights ago.
28:25But that's not what I want to talk about.
28:26It was just to remind me that through the next few nights, the Lyrid meteor shower is peaking.
28:32The peak's actually on the 22nd.
28:34And so, you know, if you want to go out and try and spot it, well, head out through the
28:39next couple of nights.
28:40It's the advice, as always, go outside, away from artificial light, head towards, you know, give your eyes maybe 20
28:51minutes or so to adjust and look up, really.
28:54If you look towards the Lyra constellation, you perhaps have a greater chance of seeing it.
28:58But there may be a few dotted around elsewhere.
29:01I think we're looking at around 10 to 50 an hour.
29:03So a fair amount.
29:05So worth checking out if you're hoping to see it, because the weather actually looks pretty favourable.
29:12This is through this coming night.
29:14So this is early hours of Wednesday, probably a little bit too early.
29:17But let's look at midnight on Wednesday for sure.
29:20There'll be some high level cloud across parts of Northern Ireland, but that will break up at times.
29:24There's a bit more cloud towards northeastern parts of Scotland, but elsewhere, a lot of clear skies.
29:29Those clear skies will allow maybe a touch of frost in a few spots.
29:32But, so yeah, it could be quite chilly, especially later on in the night.
29:37But, yeah, they'll give fairly good conditions for trying to spot the meteor shower.
29:41And if we dart ahead to tomorrow night, so Wednesday into Thursday, and perhaps even better conditions for some parts,
29:48northeastern Scotland, way less cloud around.
29:50And most places there will be some decent breaks, just a bit more cloud maybe for Northern Ireland.
29:55So, yes, if you're hoping to get a spot, actually the weather's looking favourable for it.
29:59So, yes, head outside, give your eyes around 20 minutes or so to adjust to the light and then look
30:04up.
30:06And then one last thing that I wanted to talk about, which you may have seen in the news, over
30:11in Japan, obviously there's been the earthquakes, sorry, the earthquakes and then the tsunami warnings.
30:17But they've also recently unveiled that they've come up with a name for extreme heat.
30:27So, they've given a name to when days reach or exceed 40 Celsius and they've called it Kokoshobe, which translates
30:36as cruelly hot or brutally hot.
30:39And they already had names for days when temperatures were above 25, 30 or 35 Celsius, but now they've had
30:47to give a name to days when temperatures are 40 Celsius or higher.
30:52And that's because it's becoming more common.
30:54Last summer, they had nine days where temperatures exceeded 40 Celsius.
30:59They had the highest temperature on record as well.
31:03And so, it's all about advising people and getting the message across.
31:07Contrast it to here in the UK, you know, we've only had one day on record where temperatures have exceeded
31:1340 Celsius.
31:13That was back in 2022.
31:17And, you know, it's not as hot as it is in Japan during the summer months.
31:21I was in Japan a few years ago during the summer and it was great, had loads of fun, but
31:27it was really hot and uncomfortable.
31:29And so, it's no wonder that they're trying to do this messaging.
31:33But nonetheless, you know, what do you think we should call a spell of hot weather, extremely hot weather?
31:40Do you think we should give it a name?
31:41Maybe Scorchio or the Great British Bake Off?
31:45Or how about Alex?
31:47You know, something that's extremely hot.
31:50Anyway, on that bombshell, thank you so much for watching this week's Deep Dive.
31:55As I said, Aidan and I will be back with the Weather Studio Live on Friday.
31:58So, get your comments, get your questions coming in and we'll be looking at those and answering some of them.
32:02Then, Alex Deacon will be here tomorrow with the 10-day trend.
32:07Don't forget to hit the like button.
32:09Let me know if you're looking out for the Lyra of Meteor Shower.
32:13Let me know any suggestions for extreme hot spells, what we could call them.
32:18And also, let me know if you agree with my prediction at the start that this could be one of
32:22my best Deep Dives ever.
32:24Don't let me know if you don't think it was.
32:27Anyway, enjoy the rest of your day and I'll see you again soon.
32:29Bye-bye.
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