This is an in-depth Met Office UK Weather forecast for the next week and beyond.
It’s been wet. Very wet. Although a drier interlude is expected during the next few days, there will still be some showers around. Is there any chance of prolonged drier weather. Bringing you this deep dive is Met Office meteorologist Aidan McGivern.
It’s been wet. Very wet. Although a drier interlude is expected during the next few days, there will still be some showers around. Is there any chance of prolonged drier weather. Bringing you this deep dive is Met Office meteorologist Aidan McGivern.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Hello and welcome to the Met Office Deep Dive. This week I'm going to be taking a
00:05 deep dive into the rain. It's certainly deep enough after the winter we've had.
00:10 There are several reasons I'm going to be focusing on the rain this week. We've
00:14 had a lot of it, many people if not everyone are sick of it and although
00:20 we're seeing a drier spell over the coming days there is still plenty of
00:24 rain to talk about. But most importantly I've got a new toy to play with and I'm
00:29 really excited to show you. And if that's not enough to encourage you to watch
00:34 these videos on a regular basis, they are done every Tuesday, hit subscribe on our
00:38 YouTube channel. These videos are exclusive to our YouTube channel. And
00:42 like and comment and all that good stuff. Well I don't know what will be enough.
00:47 Now let's get on with it. This is the rainfall radar over the last 24 hours. At
00:51 the moment it's showing Tuesday morning and as you can see there is some heavy
00:55 rain across the south and southeast. The remnants of a weather system that moved
00:59 into western parts during Monday, a wet day in the west and that now is clearing
01:05 eastwards. But really the focus for rain over the next few days has shifted. It's
01:10 going to be well a) more showery and less frontal and b) more shifted towards the
01:17 east. However let's take a look before we talk about the rain in the coming few
01:23 days. Let's take a look at how wet it has been. You might have seen this before.
01:27 This is the February rainfall amount that we saw compared with average. And
01:32 it's a remarkable map. It just shows how wet it's been across much of England and
01:37 Wales, particularly the southern half of the UK. For a very large area that dark
01:42 blue indicates more than twice the February average rainfall. And more like
01:48 average across Scotland, Northern Ireland, parts of Northern England, one or two
01:51 drier spots. But yeah, absolutely sodden across the Midlands, East Anglia,
01:57 Southern England, South and West Wales. And of course that's not been the only
02:03 wet month we've seen recently. This shows the rainfall compared with average for
02:07 winter. And as you can see, eastern, central and southern parts of the UK
02:11 covered in blues indicating above average winter rainfall. And some places
02:16 seeing, you know, 170% of the rainfall. Some places seeing their wettest winter
02:23 on record. Western Scotland, normally the wettest part of the UK in the winter. But
02:28 this is an anomaly map, so it shows the difference compared with average. And as
02:32 you can see, it was closer to average for Western Scotland and Northern Ireland.
02:37 Not only has it been wet through the winter, it was wet through the autumn, it
02:40 was wet through August and July. It's basically been raining since July. So are
02:45 we going to see any drier weather during the coming months? More specifically in
02:50 the coming weeks of course. I'm going to be talking about that in a moment. But it
02:55 is interesting when you look at winter rainfall, the correlation with rain and
03:00 temperature. And this is the final image I want to show on the winter rainfall.
03:04 But it's a really interesting one. It's got the temperature on the bottom and
03:08 it's got the rainfall on the left there on the y-axis. And each of these dots
03:15 is a specific year going back to 1885. Now the most recent decade, the most
03:21 recent ten winters are coloured in whatever the other colour is to blue. I
03:26 don't know, I should have checked. I'm colour blind. Red, orange, green, something
03:30 like that. But it's not the blue, not these blue dots, the ten that are
03:34 coloured in a different colour basically. So the ten most recent are shifted
03:39 towards this side of the graph. That is the warm side, so the mean temperature on
03:46 the bottom increasing along the x-axis. So they're all shifted, they're all
03:51 shifted above three degrees mean temperature. Now they're also tending to
03:56 be shifted more up the y-axis as well. That's the wetter side of the graph. So
04:01 there's a cluster of them over here. And you could draw a faint line diagonally
04:06 because there is this correlation between winter temperature and winter
04:10 rainfall. The wetter a winter is, typically the warmer it is because you
04:16 typically get wetter weather when you get Atlantic systems moving. And of
04:20 course they bring not only the rain clouds but the milder air with them. So
04:23 the coldest winter on record, here it is, really stands out actually on its own.
04:29 1963 was also the driest winter on record or one of the driest
04:36 winters. As you can see there are a couple that were slightly drier. It was
04:39 also the sunniest winter on record. So sunshine and cold weather and lack of
04:45 rainfall all tie in together in the winter. Whereas this cluster of winters
04:50 very mild, very wet. And here is 2024. Right up the x-axis, this side, the warm
05:01 side of the graph and way up towards the top, the y-axis, the
05:06 rainfall. Alongside 2020, 2016 you've got, and here are the other seven or so
05:14 recent winters. The warmest winter on record remains 1989 but the wettest
05:20 winter on record 2014. So that was relatively recent. We have had a
05:24 lot of wet winters recently. So there seems to be a trend emerging. Warmer
05:30 winters, wetter winters. That's entirely consistent with what we expect with
05:34 climate change. But it is, as I mentioned, turning a little drier over the next few
05:42 days and that's because when you take a look at the bigger picture, let's zoom
05:47 right out, this area of high pressure, the Scandinavian high. Now we've got low
05:53 pressure still close to us out to the west coming in from the Atlantic and we
05:57 often see this battleground in the winter and the spring. It's between high
06:02 pressure over Scandinavia and low pressure in the Atlantic. When high
06:06 pressure over Scandinavia dominates it tends to be colder and drier. When low
06:09 pressure from the Atlantic moves in it tends to be wetter, windier and milder.
06:13 But that high pressure over Scandinavia is certainly exerting its influence and
06:18 it's having an impact on the jet stream actually. So as you can see that high is
06:23 extending its weight towards the UK and it's helping to disrupt the jet stream.
06:28 Here's the jet stream at fast-flowing current of air high in the sky and
06:32 rather than sending us this low it disrupts its stalls out to the west of
06:38 us. In fact it can't go across us so it dips beneath us and as you can see you
06:44 get this very elongated what we call an upper trough, this low pressure in the
06:49 upper atmosphere. So this is the start of Thursday and you can see that high
06:53 pressure over Scandinavia really dominating across the UK bringing a lot
06:57 of dry weather but not entirely drying. We mentioned Thursday weather in just a
07:01 moment or so but essentially caught up in this airflow that's coming in from
07:06 continental Europe. We've got something known as an upper cold pool and I'll go
07:12 into the details about what that means in just a moment but it means that it
07:15 won't be entirely dry on Thursday even if we've got higher pressure to the
07:19 east. Meanwhile the jet stream is sending low pressure not towards the UK but
07:25 southwards towards Iberia. Some very wet weather occurring in Iberia during the
07:31 second half of this week. We've also got the jet stream then pushing through the
07:36 Med and we've got a storm that was named by Italy, Fedra, that's pushing into
07:44 Greece and Turkey over the next few days bringing some wet weather. So the
07:48 unsettled weather because the jet stream will be south shifted really
07:51 dominating across the Mediterranean. Also look at this on Thursday, got the jet
07:56 stream then pushing north again after this elongation out to the west of the
08:00 UK and bringing some wet weather to Iceland. So the wet weather surrounding
08:05 the UK during the latter half of this week and that brings me nicely onto the
08:12 new toy that I promised and of course it's a risk debuting this new toy in
08:19 this as live broadcast because it's a new piece of technology it could fail on
08:26 me but it could also be the coolest thing you've ever seen. Let me know in
08:31 the comments whether you like it or love it. This shows the rainfall totals during
08:36 the rest of this week and if I play it forward to the end of this week as you
08:41 can see it's getting wetter and wetter across parts of Europe. Not a huge amount
08:47 for the UK up till Saturday but this bright spot there across Portugal shows
08:53 basically according to the key here more than a hundred millimeters of rainfall
08:57 building up between now and the middle of Saturday. We've also got a wet spot
09:04 there across the Alps, parts of south of France into Greece and Turkey. So really
09:10 the wet weather is focused across southern Europe. Another way of showing
09:14 that is in 3D. Watch this. I'm just gonna skip forward to that and to show the
09:25 full effect we can tilt the map, zoom in a bit, there we go. And what we're seeing
09:34 here is the same sort of thing those rainfall totals so the rainfall totals
09:38 this time between now and up to the middle of Friday coloured in according
09:42 to the key on the right but they're not just flat on the map they are popping
09:48 out. If we tilt the map there it's a bit too far. So this is parts of northern
09:55 Portugal. Let's play it and see those rainfall totals really build up during
10:01 Friday and into Saturday. So there's a serious point here it's that the rain
10:06 that we have been getting so much of across southern parts of the UK. It's
10:10 been deflected even further south during the rest of this week because of that
10:14 south shifted jet stream. And Portugal unfortunately are going to bear the brunt of
10:18 that wet weather so that could cause some serious impacts especially across
10:22 northern parts of Portugal with widely more than a hundred millimeters and in
10:26 some places 125 or more millimeters in just a few days. And Portugal's not the
10:33 only place where that rainfall is being pushed. We move across to Iceland as I
10:39 mentioned through Thursday and Friday in particular we've got the wet weather
10:42 building up across southern parts of Iceland so as you can see 100
10:46 millimeters or more in places there. And it's mild as well in Iceland so likely
10:51 to be mostly rain along that south coast. And then moving across the
10:55 Mediterranean there's the south of France there's northern parts of Italy
10:59 so some significant rainfall building up between now and the end of the week. So
11:06 there you go that's that's our new toy. Hope you enjoyed it. Let us know if
11:09 there's any other way that you think that could be improved or if you love it
11:13 or hate it. Always good to hear feedback on these new things that we try out in
11:17 this deep dive and you know hope they work and hope they are useful in
11:22 visualizing the weather and explaining things. But let's get on with talking
11:27 about the weather for the second half of next week because this week because I
11:33 left off on Friday so we've got that wet weather being deflected into Europe.
11:36 Friday is a mostly dry day for the UK but by Saturday that low that I
11:41 mentioned for Iberia well it starts to push north again and that's going to
11:46 likely bring us some heavier rain as we begin the weekend particularly into
11:50 southwestern areas. Now northern parts of the UK in particular northern Scotland
11:55 could stay dry through the weekend and relatively cold actually so there's a
12:00 north-south contrast in temperatures across the UK for the next few days.
12:06 There's cold air has been dragged westwards from the continent across much
12:12 of northern and eastern Scotland. Meanwhile milder air makes inroads
12:16 because of this system coming up from the south and southwest by the weekend.
12:21 So a north-south contrast in temperatures colder and drier in the
12:24 north milder and wetter on Saturday in the south. Quick overview of the weather
12:28 over the next few days, let's put on the cloud. So for the rest of Tuesday really
12:32 we've got those heavy showers and thunderstorms towards the southeast.
12:35 Then into Wednesday yet further showers are expected mainly across central and
12:41 eastern parts. A cold frosty but bright start in the west clouding over in
12:47 Northern Ireland and some showers appearing into the far southwest as well
12:50 as the Republic of Ireland there through the day. Some showers possible for the
12:54 Northern Isles but actually plenty of dry weather, best of the sunshine there
12:58 across western Scotland. Wales keeping the clear skies into the early hours of
13:03 Thursday and again another frosty start on Thursday across western parts but
13:07 Thursday is an interesting one. We've got a dry start to the day, a lot of cloud
13:13 around but some sunny spells. Then I mentioned a cold pool. I just want to
13:19 show you this, it's fairly technical but I'll try and explain it as best I can.
13:23 Now this shows the UK in each of these panels at six hour intervals. This is
13:30 midday Thursday, 6 p.m. Thursday, midnight. So take a look at the top here and this
13:37 bullseye type image here, so if you can see that's the central and southern part
13:43 of the UK top left panel and the circles that are coloured in blue that indicates
13:49 the presence of what we call a cold pool. So this is cold air at around 20,000
13:55 feet in the atmosphere and at the start of Thursday it's across southern parts
14:01 of the UK. Then Thursday evening it's moving north northwestwards and by
14:06 midnight it's up there across Northern Ireland and western Scotland. Why is that
14:10 cold pool at 20,000 feet important if it's not really going to feel that cold
14:14 down below? Well it's because there are a couple of ways of generating heavy
14:19 showers and thunderstorms. One is to heat the air at the ground, that's how we
14:23 typically think of things, heat the air at the ground and that will then rise
14:27 quickly. So if you've got this warmer air we know that warm air rises, it rises
14:32 quicker if you heat it. So on a typical summer's day when you get that strong
14:36 solar heating you can generate big shower clouds. But another way is to do
14:41 the reverse but with the same effect, cool the air high up and that has a
14:46 similar effect. The air down below is now much warmer relative to the
14:51 surroundings so if you cool the air high up then you get this rapidly rising air,
14:57 heavy showers and thunderstorms and so on. And that is indeed what we're seeing
15:01 through Thursday, this cold pool at 20,000 feet crossing the country and
15:06 providing a focus for heavy showers and thunderstorms. What does that look like
15:11 with our new toy? That's what you're all asking I'm sure. And here, is that the
15:17 bars? No, there's the bars. In fact we need to skip forward to Thursday, that's
15:24 Friday. This will be seamless next time I do it, I promise. Okay so this is 2 p.m.
15:31 Thursday and what I want to emphasize here is not to take things too literally.
15:36 It does look like it's a highly detailed and accurate forecast but there's still
15:44 some uncertainty about the exact placement of that cold pool and the
15:47 exact location as it moves across the country. Of course that will have a big
15:51 difference in terms of the placement of these showers. The reason I'm showing
15:55 this is just to highlight the potential. So these showers, don't take them too
16:01 literally, their location, they could be further east, they could be further west,
16:05 they could be further north. 2 p.m. Thursday. If we just scroll back to the
16:10 beginning, there we go, scroll back a little bit, oh that's forward and there
16:19 we are, right. So this is 3 p.m. Thursday and it just shows the potential. These
16:25 bright colors indicating 30, perhaps more, millimeters in a three-hour period.
16:31 That's what this is showing, three-hour rainfall totals. So these big spikes
16:35 indicate the presence of some really beefy showers and thunderstorms but much
16:40 of the map still white. So just indicates the potential there as that cold pool
16:46 moves across the country for rapidly rising air, some beefy cumulus, towering
16:51 cumulus or cumulonimbus clouds to develop and dump a lot of rainfall in
16:56 just a few hours. But they're really quite narrow these bars and so very few
17:03 people will be affected. Many places will avoid the showers. Where the showers
17:06 occur of course they could have some impacts because they'll be very lively.
17:11 Through the day they do tend to move north, so let's just play that forward,
17:15 and they tend to fade away. But as you can see by the early hours of Friday the
17:21 potential for some showers there across parts of Scotland into Northern Ireland.
17:24 So as that cold pool moves north and of course temperatures at the surface
17:29 start to drop away because of the overnight period and the cold pool does
17:36 move so the showers do move with it. But there's still the potential for northern
17:40 parts of the UK to see some lively downpours through the night. Now that's
17:45 Thursday. On to the weekend and just staying on this graph while I've got it
17:51 and zooming out and I'm going to put on a different period. This is six hour rain
17:59 totals. Maybe it's better to do 12 hour. Here we go. And Friday as you can see
18:10 mostly dry. So this is the 12 hours through Friday. Still some showers around
18:16 as you can see but mostly dry. However moving forward again through to midday
18:24 Saturday and as you can see rain moving into the southwest parts of Wales, Central
18:30 Southern England. And this just indicates really the showery nature of that rain
18:37 as it moves in. There's some highs and lows in terms of the rainfall totals
18:41 throughout 12 hour period. But of course this is a part of the UK that we don't
18:45 want any more rainfall and as this system moves in it could cause some
18:50 impact through Saturday morning in particular for southwestern parts of the
18:53 UK. Not much rain. A few showers further north and east but really it's
18:56 southwest England into Central Southern England and parts of Wales. Then skipping
19:00 forward to second half of Saturday. As you can see further bands of showers are
19:07 pushing into the southwest as well as Wales but the initial spell of rain is
19:11 also moving across central and increasingly northern parts. There is
19:14 some uncertainty. Let's put that back on. There is some uncertainty about how far
19:19 north the rain will go but it's likely the north of Scotland is going to stay
19:23 dry. It's the rest of the country that will see these spells of rain, cloud,
19:27 showers moving in from the southwest increasingly through Saturday. So as you
19:32 can see there are some bands of higher totals and there are some white patches
19:37 still on the map so not everywhere will get a soaking through Saturday. Some
19:41 places will get more rain than they need right now. Similar into Sunday we're going
19:46 to see further spells of rain arrive. There's a signal there across the
19:50 southeast there for some heavier more prolonged rain through the first half of
19:55 Sunday but eventually, eventually, if this goes that far the low does sink away so
20:05 it does get carried by the jet stream and it pushes away into the continent
20:10 for the start of next week. Then we're left, well we're back at square one really
20:15 and just to finish up, let's give you an indication about what we're thinking for
20:20 next week. Well this sums it up really. We're back with high pressure over
20:25 Scandinavia, low pressure over the Atlantic and this battleground, we're in
20:30 the middle. Now initially through next week once that initial low pulls away
20:33 into the continent it's likely through Tuesday, Wednesday, perhaps Thursday for
20:37 most parts of the UK to be mostly dry because that high will start to dominate
20:43 across the UK. Now even though we'll have this Scandinavian high building across
20:47 the UK and we might have a bit of an easterly influence for a time, there's
20:51 nothing particularly cold to the east of us at the moment so it might be feeling
20:55 a bit chilly in the easterly wind but actually temperatures aren't expected to
20:58 be anything other than close to average. But we've still got this area of low
21:04 pressure that's wanting to come in and increasingly through the second half of
21:08 next week it looks likely that it will send some outbreaks of rain or showers
21:13 into the west or the southwest at times as well. So we're back to this
21:17 battleground between high pressure to the east, low pressure to the west, which
21:20 one will dominate the UK weather. When you look at it from this zoom level, well
21:27 actually it's fairly straightforward through next week. High there, low there
21:31 but we're caught in the middle and subtle changes in the position of the
21:34 high and the low of course will have big impacts on the UK's weather and really
21:38 that's how things are looking out to the next couple of weeks, perhaps throughout
21:42 much of March with this battleground between high pressure of Scandinavia and
21:46 low pressure from the Atlantic. We'll explain more of course in the 10-day
21:51 trend tomorrow but for now that's all from this week's Deep Dive. I hope you
21:55 enjoyed it. Please send your feedback, send us your comments, hit the like
21:59 button and hit subscribe so you don't miss these again in the future. Thanks