Becoming Increasingly UnsettledAdded : Sunday at 13:41 If you've been following the numerical model output over the last few days you will know that the models have had a pretty torrid time in working out what was going to happen this week with northern blocking becoming prominent. For our part of the world the main impact of this northern blocking is that low pressure systems moving across the Atlantic are expected to fire up bringing bouts of increasingly wet and windy weather with them so an increasingly unsettled week is expected.
Here is today's pressure chart:
You can see the large area of high pressure away to the north with a ridge extending south towards another high over western Europe. We have low pressure over Scandinavia with further low pressure systems out over the North Atlantic.
Let's look at the cold air to the north, there's plenty of it around and for a time some of this colder air has moved south across northern and eastern Britain hence the cold and crisp start this morning in these areas. However out to the west and southwest is milder air and this pushes northeast during the next 24 hours or so:
This milder air then affects much of Britain and Ireland during the next few days, but that cold air is never too far away from the far north:
As we go through the week that colder air begins to sink further south across the North Atlantic which will have the net effect of invigorating those Atlantic weather systems, so that by late Wednesday into Thursday we're looking at a potentially deep Atlantic low bringing heavy rain and the risk of severe gales to the country. This is the latest GFS ► output for that time period:
Notice how the strongest winds are to the southeast of the country:
This is the ECMWF ► for the same time:
And the UKMO output:
Certainly a time frame to keep a close eye on as it won't only be the risk of gales or severe gales to watch out for, but also the potential for some heavy and persistent rainfall too:
And if that colder air to the north digs in then there could be some significant snowfall for the Scottish mountains:
In the wake of this system that colder air to the north then looks like it could be drawn further south, but again this could help fire up a secondary low pressure system which brings the risk of some more wet and windy weather by the end of the week:
An increasingly unsettled week on the cards then with wind and rain likely to become more of a feature by the second half of the week when there is the potential for some rather nasty conditions to develop. We'll keep you posted in the next few days.
METEOROLOGIST: BARBER |