This is the Met Office UK Weather forecast for the next 10 days 20/11/2024.
The cold spell will be ending but it won’t be a simple change and before the milder air arrives there’ll be more snow and ice.
Bringing you this 10 day weather outlook is Alex Deakin.
The cold spell will be ending but it won’t be a simple change and before the milder air arrives there’ll be more snow and ice.
Bringing you this 10 day weather outlook is Alex Deakin.
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NewsTranscript
00:00We start this 10-day trend in the midst of a wintry week. Much of next week looks more
00:06typically autumnal. The transition, though, could be quite interesting and we have weather
00:11warnings in place. Snow and ice warnings for the next few days, but that's then accompanied
00:16by rain warnings as we go into the weekend. This is the 10-day trend. I'm not going to
00:20go into the full detail of all of those weather warnings. Check out our website or our app
00:25for more details. Here's the bigger picture then with the jet stream, that fast-moving
00:30ribbon of air high up in the atmosphere diving to the south of the UK, meaning that we are
00:34on the cold side of the jet, which is why it has been so chilly. As we go through the
00:39next couple of days, we see a few ripples and wiggles on the jet stream, which are quite
00:44important. And by the time we get to Sunday, we've seen a switch from here to here, a 90-degree
00:51flip in the jet stream, and that has allowed much milder air to spread across the UK. So,
00:56yes, it is going to turn milder by the time we get to Saturday and Sunday. But before
01:02then, as I said, these ripples in the jet stream are going to generate areas of low
01:05pressure, one just scooting to the south on Wednesday night and Thursday. And then we're
01:10out in the Atlantic. It's a bit of a mess with one arm of the jet stream driving south
01:15and trying to develop this area of low pressure. Behind me, another arm of the jet coming out
01:20from North America and picking up these areas of low pressure. But it's actually this one
01:25that looks fairly innocuous, going to kind of merge with the one to the north. And this
01:29part of the jet stream is going to intensify this low. It's developing what we call a right
01:35entrance area to the jet. And look at it suddenly become quite a vicious area of low pressure
01:40by the time we get to Sunday. Now, the jet's going to push it up to the north of the UK.
01:44But these weather fronts swinging across the country from this low will bring wet weather
01:48and with the isobars that closely packed, it's also going to bring some windy weather.
01:54More on that low in a moment. But first of all, let's deal with this one just scooting
01:58to the southwest through Wednesday night and Thursday, pushed along by the jet stream again.
02:03Just how intense it is will determine the exact flavour of the weather that we see across
02:09the southwestern quarter of the UK as it moves to the south. The winds coming up from the
02:13south will introduce some milder air. Much of the UK will start with a frost on Thursday
02:20morning towns and cities down below freezing. But that milder air coming into the southwest
02:24means temperatures here a little bit above. But it's going to be a miss, a messy mixture
02:30of rain, sleet and snow that we see from that low pressure because we're on the cusp of
02:34those temperatures. A subtle change, bringing slightly cooler conditions or slightly milder
02:39air from the sea will have big impact. So, yes, giving us a few headaches, this area
02:44of wet weather, we are likely to see some snow Wednesday night into Thursday, particularly
02:49over the moors, several centimetres. But there is the possibility, depending on local conditions
02:54and the exact temperature, that we could see some snow even getting down to lower levels
02:59for a time. Then there's this other zone of wintry weather coming south during Thursday
03:05night and into Friday for Northern Ireland, Northern England, parts of the Midlands and
03:09Wales. Again, that could have some snow mixed in. Again, most of it likely over the hills,
03:12but we could even see a covering at low levels and certainly likely to generate some icy
03:17conditions. And for the next 48 hours, with the winds coming in from the north, that's
03:22just going to pepper Northern Scotland with more snow showers likely here. They may start
03:27to fade a little bit on Friday and by then slightly milder air is coming into many western
03:32areas. So, the showers that we see on Friday, although initially could have some sleet and
03:36snow, by the afternoon will chiefly be of rain. And for much of southern Scotland, eastern
03:41England, southern England, a good chunk of south Wales, actually a fine sunny day on
03:46Friday. Still pretty cold in the east, four or five degrees, but temperatures are starting
03:50to rise down across the southwest. Further southwest still, if I just shift out of the
03:55way, that zone of wet weather there, that is tied into that low pressure we saw at the
04:00start. There it is, pushing its way up between the UK and Iceland, but really intensifying
04:06the ice about jumping out of it as we go through the weekend, generating some pretty
04:11gusty winds, particularly so for the Republic of Ireland, it looks like later on Sunday.
04:15So, that's something we need to watch. But as well as generating some wet and windy weather,
04:21it is coming in from the Atlantic. So, it's also bringing in some milder air, the cold
04:26air in place until Friday night. And here comes that weather system just shunting away
04:31the colder air. But it's also bringing in the moisture. And as the moisture from these
04:36weather fronts hits the cold air, well, yes, we are likely to see at least some snowfall.
04:43Again, elevation, how high up you are, will really count. But we could see some heavy
04:49snow as it moves its way northwards over the hills of northern England and into Scotland.
04:53But even at lower levels, it could be a short blast of snow and it could dump quite a bit,
04:57say, with the Vale of York, even at lower levels across parts of Scotland. So, that's
05:01another thing we need to watch. We also need to watch the rainfall totals building up.
05:06In the south of the milder air, it will be rain that we see. But just highlighting here,
05:10these are the 24-hour rainfall accumulations, particularly the hills of South Wales and
05:15southwest England, seeing some quite heavy bursts of rain. And that could cause some
05:20problems as the rainfall builds up over the course of Saturday in particular.
05:25These are the main three computer model projections, all showing the same thing, really, all just
05:29highlighting that zone across South Wales. Met Office model behind me, ECMWF, the European
05:34model here, and GFS, the American model. The more coarser models, not really picking out
05:40too much detail, but just highlights there over 100mm across parts of South Wales. That
05:45is pretty significant, that rainfall building up. And the even higher resolution UK Met
05:50Office model, really picking out the hills of South Wales there, maybe as much as 150mm.
05:56And quite widely in this zone over South Wales, southwest England, we could see 50-75mm
06:01of rain. Now, it has been quite a dry start to November, but October was pretty wet. And
06:06these kind of rainfall totals falling in 24 hours could cause some further disruptions.
06:12So there are warnings in place for the rainfall. Here comes that snow in slightly more detail.
06:17You see the colder air in place again for much of the country on Saturday morning. And
06:21then that tracks its way slowly northward so that by Saturday afternoon, it's mostly
06:25rain that we're seeing across the country. But as that wet weather moves north on Saturday
06:29morning, parts of the Trans-Pennine routes in particular and then into parts of Scotland
06:34could see a spell of snowy weather and accompanied by gusty winds as well, snowfall and strong
06:41winds. That means blizzards. So some pretty unpleasant travelling conditions on Saturday.
06:45So if you have got plans travelling-wise on the roads on Saturday, just bear that in mind
06:50and do keep up to date with the forecast. Low pressure generating that wintry weather
06:57then through the course of the weekend sits around up to the northwest of the UK for Sunday
07:01and Monday, generating more showers. But also as it starts to cross, the cooler air just
07:08pulls back in down to the south of it. So yes, it turns quite a bit milder for Saturday.
07:13But then through Sunday and Monday, it starts to turn cooler once more with plenty more
07:18showers. Most of those showers will be of rain. What about after that? Well, actually
07:23quite a strong signal here that low pressure dominates through the rest of this week into
07:27the weekend. But then we see a switch around into next week with the reds here indicating
07:31high pressure. That's the dates going forward. This is the multi-model most likely pressure
07:37regime. Previous computer model runs down the side. Blue is low pressure. Red is high
07:42pressure and quite a strong signal there that we will flip over. But of course, not all
07:46high pressures are the same. This just indicating pressure higher than average doesn't mean
07:51we're going to have a high pressure sitting right over us. And when you break it down
07:54a little bit more and look at some of the regimes, the different types of flavour of
08:00high pressure that we could see, the most likely one, this mid-reddy orange colour here
08:05is actually for Scandinavian high pressure to dominate. That's where high pressure is
08:08actually sitting over Scandinavia. Now, that can still bring the UK some dry weather, but
08:14it can, in some instances, also generate easterly winds. Actually, what's more likely
08:20is that the high is a little further south. The European model suggesting this is the
08:26most likely weather flavour for the second half of next week, with the high pressure
08:30sitting just to the south, low pressure systems sitting down to the west of the southwest.
08:35Some of these lows in some of the models do whiz across parts of the south. So that's
08:39something we need to keep an eye on. But in this kind of setup, with the winds going clockwise
08:44around high pressure and anti-clockwise around low pressure, that would generate more southerly
08:48winds. And that would actually generate something a little bit milder. So, plenty going on in
08:53the short term. What do we know about next week? Well, we are likely to see things calming
08:58down at least somewhat. A colder start after things turn milder through the weekend, then
09:04turning milder again through the second half of the week, remaining changeable. So, yes,
09:09with the potential for low pressures to move in across the south, that could bring further
09:12spells of wet weather. But generally, higher pressure nearby, and that would indicate less
09:19lively, less turbulent weather than we are seeing this week. Do please keep up to date
09:25with all of the Met Office weather warnings through our app, through our website. And
09:29if you haven't done already, subscribe to our YouTube channel.