Week Ahead – showers for many before a fine weekend 09/05/22
Cooler and more changeable for a few days before warm sunshine returns at the weekend. Met Office meteorologist Aidan McGivern has the forecast for the week ahead.
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00:00Hello, and welcome to the Met Office Week Ahead forecast. The fine weather that many
00:04places saw last weekend returns by and large this upcoming weekend with high pressure centred
00:11over the UK by Saturday and increasingly warm. But before that happens, a changeable few
00:18days coming up, so if it is rain you're after, well, there'll be some rain in the forecast,
00:23not a huge amount. Weather fronts that cross the UK from the northwest over the next few
00:28days will tend to weaken, as will be the case at dawn on Tuesday in an area of cloud
00:34and mostly light outbreaks of rain pushing through the Midlands into East Anglia and
00:38the South East, clearing mostly by lunchtime to sunny spells, but also some showers for
00:45parts of Wales, Northern England and more especially Scotland and Northern Ireland seeing
00:49some very lively downpours, a blustery breeze and it will feel cool with the odd rumble
00:54of thunder as well in the far northwest temperatures into the mid-teens. Warmer than average though
01:00still further south even if it is a degree or two cooler compared with Monday afternoon,
01:06but towards the south east once that early cloud and rain clears, well, showers will
01:10avoid this area and there'll be some decent sunny spells. But the south does need some
01:16rain and there will be some coming along on Wednesday, however a lot of uncertainty at
01:22the moment about Wednesday's rainfall. To see the origins of this you have to go back
01:26to Monday and look at this part of the world, just to the north of the Azores, a weather
01:31front starts to emerge, gets picked up by the jet stream, moves on to the side of the
01:36jet stream where these things tend to develop and starts to deepen, but a lot of uncertainty
01:42because of subtle differences between computer models about the interaction between that
01:47weather front and the jet stream, a lot of uncertainty about how deep that low will be
01:51and as a result it's timing as it approaches the UK and it's track. So what looks likely
01:57is that we'll start off Wednesday with increasingly cloudy skies for the southern half of the
02:01UK, some showery or patchy rainfall pushing into Wales and the southwest and then that
02:08wetter weather starts to move its way north eastwards during the day. Now, big error bars
02:16in terms of where this rainfall ends up, the most likely situation is that we'll see some
02:20rain into the Bristol Channel, parts of South Wales, into the Midlands perhaps as well,
02:24but it could be a bit further south, could be a bit further north, we'll keep you updated
02:29here at the Met Office. Either way, northern England, Scotland, Northern Ireland sees a
02:33similar day to Tuesday, sunny spells, showers, a blustery breeze and temperatures into the
02:39mid-teens with temperatures suppressed further south where we do have the cloud and those
02:44outbreaks of rain. By Thursday any rain that does occur moves out of the way and then brighter
02:50skies once again for the southern half of the UK, mostly dry, I think increasingly cloudy
02:55the further north you are, some outbreaks of rain pushing into Western Scotland and
02:59Northern Ireland, an increasing breeze once again and temperatures perhaps a little below
03:03average for the time of year but further south we're still up into the high teens, perhaps
03:07at 20 degrees there in the southeast if we get enough sunny spells. Friday sees a similar
03:13sort of set up with a breezy westerly airflow, higher pressure towards the south, lower pressure
03:20towards the north, weather fronts crossing the northern half of the UK and generally
03:24speaking the northern half of the UK, so northern England, Scotland, Northern Ireland seeing
03:29bright spells but also showers, one or two showers perhaps further south into North Wales
03:33and the Midlands but otherwise the further south you are the brighter and drier it will
03:36be and the warmer it will be as well. Temperatures by this stage warming up once again, 22 Celsius
03:42possible in the southeast, mid-teens further north where we've got those showery conditions.
03:48Sunny showers do die away for the weekend though as high pressure builds in and this
03:51high pressure becoming centred over the UK for Saturday so that's going to lead to a
03:56lot of dry and bright weather, sunny spells increasingly across most of the country and
04:01later in the weekend as that high pressure drifts further east we'll start to draw up
04:05even warmer air, perhaps a sign of things to come for next week. But for the next few
04:10days some changeable weather, some much needed rainfall in places although I suspect not
04:15enough to make up for the shortfall that we've seen over recent months.