This is the Met Office UK Weather forecast for the weekend 13/02/2025. As Atlantic weather attempts to make inroads from the west, it clashes with cold air to the east and there'll be some wintry weather in places. Bringing you this weekend’s weather forecast is Aidan McGivern
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00:00Hi there, welcome to the Met Office forecast for the upcoming weekend.
00:04It's felt cold all week but through the weekend less cold Atlantic air tries to make inroads
00:10from the west, it comes up against the cold air to the east and in between we've got weather
00:14fronts and that will always lead at this time of year to a wintry mix of precipitation,
00:20rain, sleet, snow and even in some places particularly the Pennines on Saturday morning
00:25some freezing rain possible and you can see the snow there across parts of north-east
00:30England into south-east Scotland, a small amount of snow also for the Grampians.
00:34We're talking small amounts so at lower levels, yeah, patchy covering of wet snow possible
00:41across parts of northern England but the more significant snow more likely to build up over
00:46the hills, so the North York Moors, the Pennines for example and more especially the Grampians.
00:52Here's the south-west on Saturday, actually it's much milder, we've got Wales, the south-west
00:58of England and parts of northern Ireland seeing rain rather than anything wintry, a lot of
01:03low cloud though, some mist, murk and hill fog, temperatures of 8 or 9 Celsius back towards
01:09average, still feeling cold in the east and we've got this remarkable contrast across
01:13the UK as we end Saturday.
01:15This is 4pm on Saturday and this graphic shows the height of the freezing level, the height
01:20at which the atmosphere goes below freezing above sea level and what this shows is that
01:26you have to go all the way up to 1400 metres across northern Ireland, parts of Wales, the
01:30south and south-west to find the zero degree isotherm and that's because this is Atlantic
01:36air, it's less cold.
01:38This air comes from the continent and actually the freezing level is about 2, 3, 400 metres
01:43above sea level and there's such a tight gradient between those two air masses because they're
01:48not mixing, they're just colliding and it's in between that boundary where we've got weather
01:52fronts, where we've got bands of precipitation and therefore a messy mixture of rain, sleet,
01:57snow and freezing rain.
02:00Now playing this through, later Saturday and overnight what you can see is this air across
02:05the continent makes a return, so the Atlantic having pushed in at first on Saturday then
02:11makes a retreat by Sunday and it's still mild across the south-west but the rest of the
02:17country does turn a bit colder once again.
02:20Nevertheless, Saturday evening that's what this is showing, a lot of cloud across the
02:24UK, mist, murk, hill fog and we've got those outbreaks of rain and drizzle but they are
02:31turning increasingly wintry as the cold air makes a return so for the Midlands into the
02:35south-east and eastern parts of the UK we're going to see again mostly light and patchy,
02:42sleet and snow in places, even some freezing rain once again but towards the south-west
02:46that's where the less cold Atlantic air remains and we've still got that battleground between
02:53the Atlantic air and the continental air on Sunday, it's just that the boundary has shifted
02:58and here's where we're sitting on Sunday morning, six o'clock, Northern Ireland, Wales and the
03:03south-west tending to be in the less wintry air mass, so lots of cloud and more likely
03:10to see rain but further east, Scotland, Northern and Eastern England, the Midlands as well,
03:16likely to see some wintry weather, again mostly light precipitation, patchy here and there
03:24and also a mixture of sleet and snow tending to fizzle away later in the day, some brighter
03:29skies coming in towards the east, some cloud breaks and we could even see some sunshine
03:35in parts of East Anglia and the south-east, Northern Scotland also seeing some sleet and
03:39snow showers but some sunny spells in between, average temperatures in the west, still feeling
03:45very cold in the east. Through next week eventually the Atlantic winds out but we've got a few
03:51days at the start of the week in which it will continue to feel on the cold side.