This is the Met Office UK Weather forecast for the next 10 days 15/05/2024.
Weak, slow-moving highs and lows along with a slow and meandering jet stream make predicting the next ten days very tricky. However, there are some general trends that are emerging in much of the computer model output, as meteorologist Aidan McGivern explains...
Weak, slow-moving highs and lows along with a slow and meandering jet stream make predicting the next ten days very tricky. However, there are some general trends that are emerging in much of the computer model output, as meteorologist Aidan McGivern explains...
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 Hi there and welcome to the Met Office 10-day trend. It's a great time of year for blue
00:05 bells, spring flowers, birdsong and outdoor activities. But it's not a great time of
00:11 year for doing the 10-day trend. And that's because signals for the forecast 5 to 7 or
00:19 10 days ahead are particularly weak at this time of year. There are a number of reasons
00:24 for that, but one primary reason is the lack of a significant temperature contrast across
00:29 the Northern Hemisphere. It's relatively muted at this time of year. The seas are warming
00:33 up. The cold air over the Arctic is also starting to disappear. So that temperature contrast
00:40 which normally fuels the jet stream is weak. Therefore, we end up with a weak and meandering
00:45 jet stream, which is the case over the next few days. Look how weak and meandering it
00:49 is. It splits into various branches. Then those branches come together again. And really,
00:54 it's all over the place by the time we get to the start of next week. There's one branch
00:58 down here, there's one branch over the UK. One consistent theme though is that we start
01:04 with the jet stream dipping to the south of the UK and we end up with the jet stream going
01:09 to the north of the UK. And that tends to suggest the weather is going to become more
01:13 settled through the next few days and into the start of next week. But not entirely dry
01:19 and sunny. I must emphasise there will still be some showers around. Now, this is where
01:26 we are at the time of recording the jet stream dipping to the south. And within this dip,
01:30 we've got an area of low pressure. Watch what happens over the next few days with that low
01:34 pressure. It begins to move away from the south west of the UK into northern France
01:40 and then eventually Denmark and it's losing its influence over the UK. In the meantime,
01:47 higher pressure starts to extend from the Azores. This Azores high sometimes extends
01:52 towards the UK and brings more settled weather and that's the case into the weekend. But
01:57 we've still got lower pressure to the southeast. And we've got this branch of the jet stream
02:02 which picks up another low by the start of next week and starts to move that towards
02:06 north western parts of the UK with the Azores high beginning to ebb away again. And by the
02:11 start of next week, you'll notice how few isobars there are on the chart. So, that will
02:15 indicate that it's going to be quite calm conditions, quite benign. But at the same
02:21 time with no significant high or low in charge, it's most likely going to be a situation of
02:27 sunny spells, strong sunshine, rising the air and some sharp showers around. But let's
02:34 get back to the here and now and the start of the forecast, the time of recording. We've
02:39 got that low pressure to the southwest, cool air surrounding that low. But this plume of
02:44 warmth has wafted up across northern parts of Scotland. That's where the highest temperatures
02:49 have been over the last couple of days or so. And in between the cool air and that low
02:54 pressure and the warmer air over the far north of the UK, we've got this frontal boundary
02:59 which has been bringing persistent cloud and rain. And by the start of Thursday, that zone
03:06 of cloud and outbreaks of rain will be across parts of Wales into the Midlands and East
03:12 Anglia. And just to give you an idea of where the rainfall will be focused on Thursday,
03:18 this is the six-hour rainfall accumulations up to 6 p.m. So essentially it's Thursday
03:22 afternoon's rainfall. And you can see how highly varied it is across the country, even
03:27 from county to county. So the showery nature of the rain across South Wales, southern England
03:32 as well, indicated by the speckled nature of the rainfall totals here. Some areas, no
03:39 rain at all. So if you're in Devon, for example, if you're in the south, no rain. If you're
03:43 in the north, some very sharp showers. But essentially it's showers for many in the south.
03:48 This zone of more persistent wet weather indicated across the Midlands into parts of Wales, parts
03:55 of northern England, including Lancashire and Derbyshire, for example. And then further
03:59 north, Northern Ireland also seeing quite a speckled pattern there indicating sharp
04:04 showers, western Scotland likewise, but very little rain for northern Scotland and eastern
04:09 Scotland. And that just gives an impression of what the weather is going to be like for
04:13 the next few days, certainly up to the start of next week. Hit and miss showers, some places
04:18 staying dry with some warm sunshine in the far south, for example, eastern Scotland,
04:22 northern Scotland and away from any showers. But this zone of cloudy and damp weather still
04:27 lingering across central parts with that old weather front, which is losing its identity
04:32 as the low pressure starts to move away to the south and southeast later this week. Either
04:38 way, a zone of cloudy skies through Wales, the Midlands, some outbreaks of rain by the
04:42 start of Friday, but to the north, to the south, dry with clear spells, relatively mild
04:48 conditions. Fast forward to Friday and we've still got some sense of that weather front
04:54 across central parts. That's going to provide a focus for showers. So again, Wales into
04:58 the Midlands, east Anglia, some sharp showers or even some thunderstorms on Friday afternoon.
05:05 And dispersed by sunny spells, yes, but the best of the sunshine will be along the south
05:08 coast into the north east of England, parts of eastern Scotland, still some low cloud
05:13 affecting North Sea beaches and it's going to feel cooler here. But we've got the sunshine
05:17 elsewhere, temperatures into the low 20s feeling very pleasant. And don't forget to cover up
05:22 if you're spending time outdoors. Of course, that sun is strong at this time of year. Here's
05:26 the low. It is moving away into the weekend. But this front just about produces some lingering
05:34 showers as it moves away. So the low is not going to disappear without a fight. It is
05:39 going to bring some heavy downpours into south Wales and southern England later on Saturday
05:44 and an area of cloud as well. But away from those showers, some sunny spells, the best
05:48 of which will be across Northern Ireland, western Scotland, northern Scotland, some
05:52 low clouds still affecting northeastern parts of the UK where it will feel much cooler.
05:57 Otherwise, high teens, low 20s and by Sunday that system's out of the way. So a much brighter
06:03 day for southern parts of the UK. Long spells of warm sunshine in the south and south east.
06:09 Odd shower couldn't be ruled out. But otherwise, 22, 23 Celsius in the sunshine. A bit cloudier,
06:16 a bit cooler towards the northwest. A bit more of an Atlantic influence by this stage.
06:21 And likewise into Monday, we've got some cloud around. We've got some showers still around
06:26 but nothing particularly noteworthy. Most places are going to be dry with some warm
06:30 spells of sunshine, cooler on the North Sea coast, perhaps some low cloud. Warm where
06:34 we've got the sunshine, 21, 22 Celsius. And this is where we've got the higher pressure
06:40 influence, that higher pressure to the southwest extending mostly fine weather to the UK on
06:47 Monday. But low pressure is arriving into Iceland and so that could well send its weather
06:53 fronts to bring some thicker cloud and some rain into the far northwest into the start
06:58 of next week. Where do we go from here? Well, the signals, as I mentioned, are very weak
07:04 because of that slowly meandering jet stream and these weak, drifting low pressure systems.
07:10 But on balance, it looks like higher pressure is more likely to be close to the UK than
07:15 lower pressure. This shows the pattern for the next two weeks, whether it's higher pressure
07:20 in control or lower pressure in control. And the boxes are coloured blue for low and red
07:27 for high, green for somewhere in between for the next two weeks. The most recent model
07:32 run is on the top with previous model runs listed below. And what you can see is that
07:37 through next week we switch from the blues that we've got at the moment, the low pressure
07:41 nearby to the greens, either low or high through the weekend. And then into the middle of next
07:47 week it's favouring reds. Not a strong signal for reds, but what it is suggesting is that
07:53 we're more likely to have higher pressure close to the UK than lower pressure. The main
07:58 question marks are where that high will be and whether any lows do eventually come along
08:04 and bring some more unsettled weather. This is the most likely weather pattern for Tuesday,
08:09 the 21st of May. Similar to Monday, it's got that higher pressure extending from the southwest,
08:14 so mostly fine into southern parts of the country, low pressure over Iceland, bringing
08:19 some cloud and perhaps some rain into the far north and northwest. But nothing particularly
08:24 wet or unsettled. Likewise, nothing particularly widely dry and hot and sunny, something in
08:30 between, so mostly fine, but some showers about, especially towards the north. Then
08:37 by the time we get to Thursday, the signals are starting to diverge in terms of where
08:41 that high pressure and low pressure will end up. The first low moves into Scandinavia,
08:45 and the most likely chart here from the European model output is that lower pressure will arrive
08:50 again from the Atlantic, a fairly weak low, and bring once again some cloud and some bits
08:55 of rain into the far northwest whilst higher pressure remains to the south. But another
09:00 scenario that is popping up in some of the output is for the initial low to sink south
09:06 over the UK, again as a weak feature, but to bring some cloud and some showers in from
09:13 the north or perhaps from the east. So in both of those scenarios, we've still got higher
09:19 pressure nearby to the south and southwest, but they both also indicate lower pressure
09:25 beginning to influence things a little, either from the west or from the north or the east.
09:32 And really as we go forward into Saturday, the 25th of May, again this signal for higher
09:39 pressure to be close to the UK, in this instance to the west, with nothing particularly over
09:44 the UK, whether it's high or low pressure. And then this is a less likely scenario with
09:49 higher pressure to the southwest and lower pressure once again moving through Iceland
09:55 to bring some more changeable conditions to the north. So how do we make sense of all
10:00 these different signals? I would say look at the general themes, and one thing that's
10:05 standing out is that yes, higher pressure is more likely to be close to the UK than
10:10 lower pressure, but it's unlikely to be sitting directly over the UK, it's unlikely to be
10:14 dominating things. And also the temperature anomaly across all the model output is positive,
10:21 so we're more likely to have warmer than average temperatures than colder than average. And
10:26 this shows the Met Office output, warmer than average shown by the reds there. This shows
10:30 the European model output, warmer than average both by day and by night. And so to sum it
10:36 up really for next week, we're looking at some warm sunshine, higher than average temperatures,
10:42 more likely than lower than average temperatures. Higher pressure nearby, certainly at first,
10:46 but always there's a chance that these weak lows will begin to drift in and still bring
10:51 us some showers. However, there's no signal for anything as unsettled as we've seen so
10:56 frequently during the last few weeks and months. So if I was to sum it up in a few words, sunny
11:02 spells and showers. But of course, we'll keep you updated right here at the Met Office on
11:07 the day-to-day detail as it becomes clearer as we get closer to the time. And you can
11:12 subscribe to our YouTube channel to stay across all those updates. Bye-bye.
11:15 Thank you.