For much of Scotland and Northwest England, you may have felt that you walked through the wardrobe a few days ago into the wonderful world of Narnia as winds swung around to the Northwest and have brought plenty of snowfall across much of Scotland and Cumbria.
If it's milder weather you are after, then this could well be the week for you, but there are, as always, a few flies in the ointment before we get there.
The change is being brought on by a frontal system which is approaching from the Southwest on Sunday. Snow on the leading edge of this system as it runs into the colder air ahead of it, but once the frontal system has passed through you will see the return to tropical maritime air across all parts of the UK as we start the working week. When we say tropical, you can forget the idea of shorts, flip flops and cocktails, but more a milder, moist airmass which will return temperatures to double digits.
With this though comes a new set of complications. The main one is a thaw which will develop across Northwest England and Scotland where there is already a notable amount of fallen snow. After all, the snow cover at the moment is simply water locked up as ice crystals which will melt, turn to water and run into the rivers and streams down towards the sea. With frozen ground, this means that the water will head straight to the rivers and could cause some issues at the start of this week with some rapid snow melt causing quick rising rivers and streams in certain locations.
As we head towards the back end of this week we will see low pressure to the North of us once again deliver a brief cold shot from the North which will bring some colder days and a couple of overnight frosts, but the main thing this week is that it will turn milder for all, but areas across Scotland and Northwest England, in particular for flood prone areas should keep an eye on flood alerts this week thanks to the snow melt which will start later on today.
METEOROLOGIST : MARSH
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