After a hard overnight frost, Thursday will be dry but cold with plenty of winter sunshine. Cloud and rain spreading east on Friday, then a cloudy and mild weekend, with the odd spot of rain or drizzle in places.
Milder air has been pushed back west into the Atlantic for now, thanks to cold but clearer conditions spreading down from the north on Wednesday, though milder and cloudy conditions will return back east on Friday and into the weekend, with some rain too tomorrow, though Saturday and Sunday are mostly looking dry but cloudy.
For now, widespread clear skies and an arctic flow have led to widespread frost overnight. Temperatures in towns and cities widely close to or a few degrees below freezing at dawn. But it’s in rural areas we’ve seen a hardest frost, with Benson in Oxfordshire falling as low as -7.7C, Tyndrum in Scotland falling to -7.6C and Sennybridge in Wales falling to -6.7C. There may be some slippery surfaces to watch out for on paths and roads – particularly where we have seen wintry showers falling overnight or yesterday evening in the east. Certainly many will be scraping the car windscreen before the morning commute.
But Thursday is looking a decent day on the whole, with most places remaining dry with plenty of winter sunshine, dawn to dusk in central and eastern areas. Cloudier in the far west, with thicker cloud, a strengthening southerly wind and perhaps some rain arriving across EIRE and N. Ireland later in the afternoon. Temperatures will struggle from the cold and frosty start though, reaching 3-6C generally across England and Wales, 2-4C across Scotland – but perhaps as high as 7-8C across the far west where we have the strengthening southerly wind.
Cloud, rain and milder air across EIRE and N. Ireland will spread in across western Scotland during this evening, before spreading across the rest of Scotland, northern England and parts of Wales overnight after an early frost developing in the evening. Southern England, Midlands and East Anglia staying dry, with clear skies leading to another frost and perhaps some patchy fog developing, though becoming confined to SE England by the end of the night as cloud increases from the west.
Friday sees cloudy skies with outbreaks of rain continue to spread south and east across England and Wales, reaching SE England in the afternoon after a frosty and locally foggy start here, low cloud over western hills. Scotland, N. Ireland and EIRE tending to brighten up in the afternoon, away from western coasts where we will see low cloud or hill fog and some showers. Lowest temperatures across central and eastern England where we have the cold start then cloudy skies moving in – reaching 5-7C at best. Milder across the north and west – where temperatures look to reach 7-11C.
Then for the weekend, we see mild air flowing in off the Atlantic, which will bring a lot of cloud with it. So generally cloudy on Saturday and Sunday, though winds will be light away from northern Scotland. Some patchy light rain or drizzle possible, more particularly in the northwest and over western hills, but perhaps the odd spot of rain elsewhere. Temperatures reaching 7-9C in the north, 9-12C in the south.
A change to more unsettled and windier weather early next week
A change in the weather early next week though, as a deep area of low pressure is modeled to move east between Iceland and Scotland on Monday, which will bring strengthening winds off the Atlantic, with a spell of wet and windy weather spreading southeastwards, gales in the north, followed by squally showers across Scotland – which will turn wintry over higher ground. The rest of the week is looking changeable and windy at times with spells of rain or showers spreading southeast and turning colder too Wednesday onward in a predominantly northwesterly flow, more particularly in the north, with snow possible over northern hills.
