This is an in-depth Met Office UK Weather forecast for the next week and beyond. After Storm Darragh, will the weather stay calm or could there be further storms in the next few weeks? And are the headlines about a white Christmas accurate? Bringing you this deep dive is Met Office meteorologist Aidan McGivern
You may also enjoy:
– 10 Day trend forecast https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGVVqeJodR_ZDSHKqsgszMnk9d5IEF5UH
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You may also enjoy:
– 10 Day trend forecast https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGVVqeJodR_ZDSHKqsgszMnk9d5IEF5UH
– Podcasts exploring weather and climate https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGVVqeJodR_brL5mcfsqI4cu42ueHttv0
– Daily weather forecasts https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGVVqeJodR_Zew9xGAqYVtGjYHau-E2yL
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NewsTranscript
00:00Following Storm Dara at the weekend, the weather is back to relative calm across the UK this
00:07week as higher pressure has built in. How long will the quiet weather last and how's
00:13it looking in the run up to Christmas? Some of the more extended computer model runs are
00:18now covering the big day. So I'm going to be talking about the early hints for the run
00:22up to and for Christmas Day itself. And I'll be talking a bit about a extreme heatwave
00:29that's ongoing across southern parts of Africa. All of that to come in this week's Metalfish
00:33Deep Dive. You can find this on the Metalfish YouTube channel and the Metalfish app as well.
00:37And if you're not subscribed to the Metalfish YouTube channel, I strongly encourage you
00:41to do so and then you won't miss one of these in the future. Now, Storm Dara hit at the
00:47weekend and this satellite loop shows how it developed on Thursday, swung into the UK
00:53during Friday and then crossed the country on Saturday morning. Here's the big hook of
00:59clouds just as Storm Dara was pushing into the North Sea. And part of the issue from
01:04Dara, in fact, was high pressure that was to the west of the UK. And not only was that
01:11moving in as Dara was moving away, but that high pressure was building. So, yeah, we had
01:18a deep low across the UK and deepen as it moved across central parts of the country.
01:23But in addition to that, higher pressure to the west was elbowing in. It was also becoming
01:29higher and as a result, the pressure gradient tightened. The isobars got tighter. And those
01:36isobars with high pressure to the west and low pressure in the North Sea were directing
01:40the winds from the northwest. So, we had this sustained period of very strong winds throughout
01:46the weekend, a long lasting period of impactful winds and wind gusts in places more than 70,
01:5480, 90 miles an hour coming from the northwest, which is a relatively unusual direction for
02:01such strong winds in the UK. Normally, we get our strongest winds coming in from the
02:05southwest. But in this case, we had sustained northwesterly very strong winds. Here's a
02:11summary of the wind gusts from Storm Dara. And as you can see, here's England and Wales,
02:17widely in excess of 50 miles an hour around coastal parts, 60, 70 miles an hour. And for
02:24parts of Wales and the southwest, wind gusts in excess of 80 and in some spots, 90 miles
02:30an hour. The wind gusts in these areas peaked early Saturday morning. That's when we had
02:36a red warning for parts of coastal Wales and into the southwest. Amber warning across
02:41many other western parts of the UK. Yellow further east. And for Scotland and Northern
02:47Ireland, yeah, equally. Southern Scotland, Northern Ireland, wind gusts in excess of
02:5160 or 70 miles an hour, particularly around coastal parts. Not quite as windy for Northern
02:57Scotland. But even here, it was a blustery day with spells of rain and some significant
03:03hill snow as well, which caused some issues early on Saturday. Now, the impacts from Storm
03:09Dara were widespread, but particularly across western parts of the UK, almost 2 million
03:14houses without power and damaging wind gusts brought down trees onto cars and property.
03:21And we saw dangerous conditions around coasts and tragically, two lives were lost. We've
03:27also seen impacts from the rainfall and those impacts are ongoing. This is the latest from
03:32the River Severn, the level of it at Bewdley in Worcestershire. It just shows that it's
03:38continuing to rise and likely to peak on Tuesday afternoon. And that's at the kind of mid-levels
03:44of the River Severn, so it just goes to show that some of these larger rivers are slower
03:49to respond to systems like Storm Dara. But thankfully, we've now got higher pressure
03:56arriving, so a much calmer, drier, more settled week to come. That higher pressure centred
04:02over northern parts of the UK. Towards the south, we've still got some isobars on the
04:07map and we've still got the jet stream running across there with this low-pressure area over
04:13Iberia. So, it's not all plain sailing across the UK. That higher pressure centred over
04:18northern parts will lead to sunny skies across Scotland and Northern Ireland, as can be seen
04:23here for Tuesday afternoon. Parts of north-west England and north Wales as well are seeing
04:27some sunshine. But, with the east of the airflow further south, we've got a lot of
04:32cloud across the rest of England and Wales. And some showery rain. Fewer showers compared
04:37with Monday, but it's a bit drizzly out there for southern counties of England during Tuesday
04:42afternoon. A brisk breeze as well. It's making it feel on the cold side, I suspect, across
04:47the south and south-east. Further north, actually, temperatures are lower where we've got the
04:52sunnier skies because it's been a cold start to the day. And if we play this forward, you
04:57can see little change over the next few days. The main issues, actually, will come in the
05:04north where we're going to see those clear skies by night, temperatures falling away,
05:09frost and some dense fog patches. That fog becoming fairly widespread across parts of
05:14Northern Ireland and the central belt during Tuesday night into the start of Wednesday.
05:20In fact, pausing it there, I can just zoom in to the graphic here. And this is as we're
05:26waking up on Wednesday, 6am. And you can just see some fog patches there across the central
05:34belt. The greatest signal for fog is around the Glasgow area for Wednesday morning, but
05:38also western parts of Northern Ireland. And it's a cold start to the day. These are the
05:43kinds of temperatures we can expect. Minus 8 there for sheltered parts of Scotland, widely
05:50sub-zero under those clear skies, where we've got the fog as well. Minus 3, minus 4 Celsius
05:57Northern Ireland as well. Temperatures in the low single figures or even just below
06:01freezing. So, widespread frost and some of that dense fog. Now, playing that forward,
06:08actually, what you can see is as the morning progresses on Wednesday morning, the temperatures
06:15don't rise that far. And in fact, where we've got some fog there, just north of Glasgow,
06:22temperatures staying at minus 3 all day because of the freezing fog sticking around. The sun
06:26is weak at this time of year. It's difficult to burn off the fog. So, yeah, could see some
06:33stubborn freezing fog continuing in patches through central parts of Scotland, parts of
06:39Northern Ireland as well. And that's really going to suppress the temperatures on Wednesday.
06:42This is 1pm. You can see temperatures in some of the colder spots of Scotland staying below
06:47freezing. Stark contrast to further south across England and Wales because it's another
06:53cloudy day for many areas. We start off frost and fog free, although there'll be some low
06:59cloud covering the hills, some gloom first thing, and temperatures in the afternoon of
07:056 or 7 degrees typically. Some broken cloud there for parts of the Midlands and North
07:09Wales, but otherwise it's grey skies and 6, 7 degrees and still some showery rain for
07:15the far south because of this easterly breeze. Fast forward to Thursday and little change
07:23really for southern parts. The one big difference that starts to appear on the maps is this
07:32area through Northern England, parts of East Anglia. There's this little plume of more
07:37moist air coming in from the North Sea. And as you can see, some blues on the map there.
07:43Some showery rain starting to push into East Anglia, East Midlands, up through North East
07:47England and a lot of low cloud covering the hills as well. That extending into southern
07:52Scotland and parts of Northern Ireland, so perhaps less low-lying fog around for Northern
07:56Ireland, southern Scotland first thing Thursday. A cloudier picture for many. And into Friday
08:03that trend continues with actually many parts of the UK seeing an increase in the cloud
08:11cover and outbreaks of rain just pushing into Scotland, Northern Ireland. That cloud's going
08:18to be low, so it's going to be covering the hills. Could even come down to the surface
08:22in some places. So Friday's a gloomy day, not much brightness out there. Some sunshine
08:27for the far north of Scotland, perhaps the far north-west of Scotland. But it's still
08:32going to feel cold. Temperatures typically 3 to 5 or 6 degrees as you can see. And some
08:39of those outbreaks of rain. Something's happening out there to the north-west. That's a weather
08:45front that's starting to move in. And that's going to bring about a change into the weekend.
08:51More on that in a moment, but I'm just going to take a look at the temperatures, not just
08:56in the UK, but also further afield. There's a big contrast between what's going on in
09:02the UK and what's going on in the southern hemisphere. Now, just want to show the temperature
09:09trend there for some of the coldest parts of Scotland. They're shown up by the larger
09:13blue circles here. So some of these more sheltered parts of Scotland, as you can see, these are
09:18the minimum temperatures, minus 12, minus 10, but they do rise into the weekend. So
09:24this upward trend later in the week and into the weekend as we see cloudier weather and
09:28some outbreaks of rain arrive. Likewise, maximum temperatures around zero or just below, but
09:34then starting to rise into the weekend. Conversely, further south, just picking a random location
09:40on the map there, you can see temperatures by day, six, seven by night, three, four,
09:46but then both of those rising as we go into the start of next week. So it's a cold week
09:52of weather for many parts of the UK, but the coldest weather will be under those clearer
09:55skies in the north across parts of Northern Ireland and Scotland over the next few days
10:01and nights. Further south, it's a lot of cloud cover, so quite chilly, but nothing particularly
10:07frosty signalled. Meanwhile, we zoom out and travel further south across the world. I want
10:21to focus on southern parts of Africa because here we've got an extreme heatwave taking
10:30place and extremely long as well as extremely high temperatures. Just to pick this location
10:39here, Marientel in Namibia, and you can see how the temperatures are rising into the low
10:4640s and then up to 47 degrees by the weekend. So some unusually high temperatures, even
10:53for Namibia. Now, obviously, it's the summer, it's Africa, you expect it to be hot, but
11:01these temperatures are unusually high, as I'll show in just a moment. Likewise, if we
11:08just pick this location, Tabazimbi, and temperatures up to 48 Celsius, 47 Celsius Friday, Saturday,
11:18and these are the minimum temperatures up into the high 20s, low 30s, so some really
11:22oppressive heat. Nearby, we've got the capital of Botswana, which is Gaborone, and again,
11:30temperatures up to 39 Celsius. Now, those are the kinds of temperatures you might think
11:38occur in this part of the world, but here's another thing to mention. Gaborone is a thousand
11:45metres high. That's higher than most of the UK, higher than most of the hills in England
11:55or Wales. So as you go higher in the atmosphere, you typically expect lower temperatures, and
12:00in fact, a typical rule of thumb is that if you go up 100, 150 metres or so, the temperature
12:08will decrease by about a degree. So likewise, if you bring those temperatures down, you
12:14might be able to add on 8, 9, 10 degrees to what they would be if this area wasn't
12:20so hilly and mountainous. So 39 degrees there, and the other place I mentioned, Tabazimbi,
12:29just bring it up again, might have lost it. Anyway, that was 48 degrees, and that's equally
12:36just under a thousand metres high. So these are extreme temperatures. Another way of showing
12:40how extreme the temperatures are is on this meteorogram from the European model. This
12:47shows the average maximum temperature for Gaborone, and it's typically about 32-33 degrees
12:54for the time of year, average minimum temperature just under 20 degrees. These boxes show the
13:00forecast temperature, and it's taking it from lots of different computer model runs, and
13:05so it's an indication of the trend, but also the uncertainty. The larger the box, the greater
13:10the range of probable temperatures. But effectively, what we're seeing are these boxes going above
13:16the top red line, which is the extreme. So that's the record in the model climate from
13:23the European model. So it takes 20 years' worth of weather, and that top line is the
13:31highest that it witnesses at this time of year from 20 years of computer model runs.
13:37And yeah, on Friday into Saturday, those boxes are above that model extreme, which
13:43is 40 degrees or so. Looking at that from a map point of view, this shows a similar
13:51sort of thing. So it's highlighting where the temperatures are extreme compared with
13:56that 20-year model climate, where we've got the dark reds. Effectively, it's very rare
14:01or extreme temperatures that we're expecting through the next few days. This is Wednesday,
14:06and the numbers as well indicate how extreme the temperatures are. So some of the places
14:11here are 90, 91. That indicates that it's in the top 10% or so of extreme temperatures
14:19comparing with 20 years' worth of model data. This is Thursday, and what tends to be happening
14:25as the week goes on is the heat intensifies and moves further east. And we've got numbers
14:30like 95, 97, 94, and those just indicate that it's the top few percent of the model
14:40climate or the extremes. Botswana, South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia. These are the
14:49locations likely to see the most extreme temperatures. Botswana's national record is 44 Celsius.
14:57I think Zambia's national record is 42.4 Celsius. So some national records could be
15:03broken. And going into Friday as well, if anything, the heat is becoming more widespread.
15:09It's shifting further east, but it's becoming more widespread. And the darker reds appear
15:13in there, indicating it's becoming more extreme. Why is this so impactful, and why is it happening?
15:19Basically, we've got this strong area of high pressure, this upper high pressure as well
15:23as surface high pressure. And the rainy season should be starting about now, but it's been
15:29delayed. So they've just got ongoing dry and sunny weather, scorched ground. And in this
15:37part of the world, they've had an ongoing drought since the end of the wet season, early
15:422023. And this is further contributing to those issues. And at this time of year, with
15:48the rainy season supposed to be starting, they should be planting the main crop, which
15:53is maize. But that's likely to be delayed by at least a month. And so there's likely
15:58to be health issues for humans and for animals, and big impacts for agriculture because of
16:04the ongoing drought and the delay to this wet season. So yeah, some very extreme weather
16:10in southern Africa. Complete contrast to what has been suggested for the UK for Christmas.
16:20Will UK weather maps turn white as 36-hour snow bomb hits in time for Christmas? Now,
16:26I know deep dive audience is an intelligent audience, so you don't need me to tell you
16:31that this is absolute nonsense. Not just forecasting with such confidence and certainty more than
16:39two weeks ahead, but also making up terms like 36-hour snow bomb, which doesn't really
16:46mean anything at all in meteorology. But what is shown here is one computer model run
16:53that was from yesterday, from the American model, for Christmas Day. Because yesterday
16:58was the first day that computer models extended as far as Christmas Day. And very excitingly,
17:06for papers like this, the first computer model runs indicated some snow in some parts of
17:14the UK. But I've checked today's extended run of the GFS model, and it's showing the
17:22complete opposite. Very mild southwesterly winds and outbreaks of rain in places. So
17:28if those two different computer model runs are showing two completely different types
17:33of weather, what on earth can we say about Christmas? Can we say anything at all? Well,
17:38what meteorologists actually do is rather than cherry pick one computer model run for
17:42more than two weeks' time, the computer models are run lots and lots of times. And then we
17:47can pick out areas where they're agreeing and areas where they're disagreeing. And then
17:52we can talk about most likely weather patterns and less likely weather patterns, or common
17:57themes or trends and so on. And that's what we do all the time here at the Met Office
18:01in our 10-day trend forecast and our 14-day forecast that you find on our app, and sometimes
18:07in the deep dive as well. So let's take a look. I'm going to rewind and look at this
18:12weekend first of all, because that helps explain how the weather may evolve up to and including
18:18Christmas Day. So at the moment, we've got high pressure over northern parts of the UK.
18:24But fast forward to Saturday, that high pressure is slipping away. Why is that? Part of the
18:31reason actually, going back to Friday, part of the reason is a cold air outbreak across
18:36northern parts of America. That's going to strengthen the jet stream coming out of the
18:42eastern seaboard there. And initially, the jet stream just pushes the wind further north
18:50into Greenland and builds this area of high pressure on the other side of the Atlantic.
18:55And as that high pressure builds, it forces some weather fronts in between that high and
19:01the high that's currently over us, forces those weather fronts into northwestern parts
19:05of the UK for the weekend. And that's the front that I mentioned earlier that's going
19:10to bring some outbreaks of rain on Saturday into parts of northern and western Scotland.
19:15That weather front then sinks south. It fizzles away. But the upstream pattern across the
19:21Atlantic has fundamentally changed by this stage. We've got this strong jet streak, this
19:28slice of enhanced jet stream coming across the Atlantic, but it becomes more flat with
19:33time. And the whole pattern actually flattens. By that, I mean it becomes more westerly,
19:39less loopy. And by Sunday, this is Sunday, 11 o'clock, we've got a different setup. Rather
19:48than high pressure to the north of the UK, which is what we've got at the moment, we've
19:51got high pressure to the south. And we've got this strong westerly airflow across the
19:58country, weather fronts coming into the north and west of Scotland, some significant rain
20:03building up across western Scotland. We're talking about more than 100 millimetres by
20:07the end of the weekend over some exposed parts of western Scotland. Of course, Scotland hasn't
20:12been quite as wet as other parts of the UK during recent weeks, but could see some impacts
20:18from that. It's going to be windy as well with tightly packed isobars. Further south,
20:22higher pressure, closer by, and so mostly settled. But take a look at this. Near the
20:30Canaries, this area of low pressure and this little trough in the jet stream coming through
20:39across the Atlantic. And actually, just playing it as far as it goes there, what you can just
20:44start to see is the first sign of the trough in the jet stream over the Atlantic beginning
20:48to join up with this area of low pressure. So, that's likely to join up. Pick up that.
20:56This is an area of rain and showers. And then, by the middle of next week, all of that, this
21:04area of low pressure over here, this area of low pressure over here, is likely to come
21:08in and hit the UK from the west. But this is a really complicated setup because we've
21:15got several things that start to interact with each other in several days' time in uncertain
21:23ways. And so, what we can say with relative confidence is that we start next week with
21:30these westerlies, the more unsettled weather across northern parts of the country, more
21:34settled further south, and increasingly mild. Remember, I showed those graphs which show
21:39the temperature increasing across all parts of the UK by Monday next week. Then, areas
21:45of low pressure are likely to move in from the west and start to affect the UK. Maybe
21:51Tuesday, more likely Wednesday, Thursday to bring more unsettled weather. But, where those
21:57low pressure systems come from, that's the main source of uncertainty for the middle
22:01part of next week. This is Tuesday. This is the most likely weather pattern for Tuesday.
22:05It shows low pressure coming in from the west or the southwest and outbreaks of rain into
22:11western parts, drier further east. But, fast forward to Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday
22:21and this is the most likely weather pattern. A similar sort of thing, but more widespread
22:25wet and windy weather arriving. However, that's a 20% probability and there's a 12% probability
22:31this is a second most likely weather pattern. That low will be in a slightly different place.
22:35It will be further north. More unsettled weather will be more widespread across the UK. And
22:40a third weather pattern here, again, shows a slightly different orientation of these
22:45lows. One over there to Iceland, one much further southwest bringing spells of rain
22:50in to the south, but many central parts of the UK drier. So, it's not necessarily the
22:57case that we don't have a clue because there are strong signs of a common theme starting
23:02to occur around the middle of next week and that is the weather's turning more unsettled.
23:07Outbreaks of rain, strengthening winds are arriving exactly where they hit first and
23:12where we'll see the heaviest rain. That's the main source of uncertainty. Likewise,
23:18by the end of next week, some computer model projections have the rain clearing through
23:24like this one with higher pressure to the southwest. Others keep it wet in the west,
23:28drier to the east and others still have it more widely unsettled. So, again, picking
23:35out common themes, what we can say is that it's likely to be unsettled. It's likely to
23:40be changeable across the UK. There'll be spells of rain moving through from Wednesday, Thursday
23:46to Friday and possibly into Saturday as well. This is Sunday and still we've got areas of
23:53low pressure effect in the UK, but one small change starting to occur through this weekend.
24:01This is a long way off, 21st, 22nd of December, so it's almost 12 days away. One subtle change
24:08is that now we've got lower pressure more likely towards the north of the UK, higher
24:12pressure trying to build in from the south. This is another computer model weather pattern
24:20that's coming through for that same period, Sunday the 22nd of December and it's got higher
24:25pressure more firmly in charge across southern parts of the UK. And likewise, here's a third
24:31that for the same day shows higher pressure to the southwest. So, common themes through
24:38next week, westerlies to begin things with low pressure to the north, higher pressure
24:42to the south. Then, around Wednesday time, low pressure developing more widely across
24:48the UK, spells of wet and windy weather for many, very mild as that happens as well. Then
24:54by the weekend after, higher pressure starting to return again from the south. Too early
25:00for specifics, but those are the general trends. After that, and now we're talking about
25:08the week of Christmas. There are some weather patterns that are starting to appear in the
25:13computer model output that give a sense, a small flavour of what we might expect for
25:19the week of Christmas. One commonly occurring theme is for higher pressure to the south,
25:26lower pressure towards Iceland and this strong westerly airflow, a bit like how I described
25:30the weather for next Monday. So, westerlies, mild, these are the temperature anomalies,
25:35so a degree or two above average, spells of rain, especially towards the northwest.
25:40That high pressure is key. Where that ends up for that Christmas week is crucial in determining
25:47exactly what kind of weather we'll get through that week because that higher pressure is
25:51the common theme in most of the computer model projections. In this one, it's more firmly
25:57across the south of the UK. Again, mild, but the unsettled weather more towards the far
26:02northwest, many places more settled. And in this one, it's more towards the southwest
26:08and it's a bit colder with these northwesterly winds. Now, the GFS run that I mentioned that
26:14came out on Monday that had snowfall, that was mostly a more amplified, more extreme
26:20version of this with the higher pressure further north and more of a northerly wind. And that
26:26is a possibility, but at the moment, it's not looking like the most likely option.
26:31This sums up all of that model variability for the week of Christmas, 23rd of December
26:39through to the 30th of December. And this shows the average pressure anomaly from all
26:44the different computer models for that week. And it shows quite strongly a signal for higher
26:48pressure out there to the southwest of the UK. That would lead to westerlies or northwesterlies.
26:56So unsettled, the more unsettled weather in the northwest, drier towards the south and
27:00southwest and mostly relatively mild. Now, that's from the most recent set of model runs.
27:10This is from the set of model runs from a day before and the day before that. And they
27:15all show roughly the same thing, although 24 hours earlier, the high was a bit more
27:20amplified and that would lead to perhaps a colder feel, northwesterlies or northerlies.
27:26And the temperature anomaly for the corresponding weeks is sitting below each of those. The
27:34most recent models show reds across the UK and would suggest, I'm just going to skip
27:40back to that, would suggest milder than average, but 24 hours earlier had closer to average.
27:47So basically, this is from the Met Office extended model as well, MoGREPs, and this
27:55shows an average higher pressure anomaly to the southwest of the UK. So there's this
27:59broad agreement for that week of Christmas at the moment for higher pressure somewhere
28:05to the west or southwest of the UK, mostly a westerly Atlantic influence for the UK itself,
28:13more unsettled towards the north, more settled towards the south. Certainly no signs of a
28:19strong signal for a white Christmas, but nothing could be ruled out right at this stage and
28:25it would be foolish to take one computer model run and go with that, as we all know,
28:31I'm sure. And so, yeah, if you see headlines like this, I would strongly encourage you
28:39to ignore them and head to the Met Office YouTube channel. We'll be keeping a close
28:43eye on things as they evolve in the run-up to Christmas. We'll keep you updated right
28:46here. We've got the 10-day trend. Tomorrow, of course, we've got our 14-day outlook that
28:51we put on our app. All of that involves a look at the very latest information and we'll
28:57be updating things as and when we've got more and more new information. But thanks for joining
29:01me this week. That's all I've got for you.