A look ahead to the UK's weekend weather including Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday.
Autumn is moving along and this November weekend includes Armistice Day on Saturday with many parades planned for Remembrance Sunday. Western areas have seen a lot of showery weather already this week with rain reaching other areas at times. We remain in the westerly flow with low pressures passing by. One on Friday will pull away over the North Sea by early Saturday bringing a cold northwest blast down through Britain. However the wind soon eases and a fine, settled day should follow. Another Atlantic low will be edging towards the UK through the weekend. This will bring milder air from the south and blustery winds by Sunday.
For Saturday, although not a completely dry day there will be a lot of fine, quiet weather over southern Britain. Further north there will be a bit more cloud about, with light winds but a scattering of showers. Northern Ireland looks fine.
For many, Sunday morning could also be fine, it will depend on the arrival of frontal rain from the west/southwest linked to the next low.
The ECM model has the warm front rain reaching Cornwall and southern Ireland by Saturday evening. By dawn on Sunday, the south-to-southeasterly winds will be freshening for Ireland, western Britain and the Channel Islands. County Down and Anglesey and exposed coasts and hills could see strong winds through the morning. Everywhere will see the wind pick up by late morning. The main frontal rain looks to be over Northern Ireland, Wales, SW England by mid-morning and will get heavier. This will depend on where the triple point (where the cold front, warm front and occlusion join) passes. The rain band also covers more of western England, central southern England and Dumfries & Galloway by midday on Sunday.
The ensemble output from GFS shows a variation of reach for the frontal rain by midday on Sunday.
The main band of heavier rain should move from Wales across most of England, taking its time during Sunday. It will also affect most of Scotland except perhaps the north of the mainland. There will be a fresh SE wind bringing low cloud onto the coasts of eastern Scotland.
The timing of this incoming rain could change, so it will be worth looking again at the timings for Sunday on the models, on a weather app and a quick glance on Sunday morning at the Netweather radar. Which will show you the progress of the rainband from the Atlantic.
This weekend temperatures look to be around 8 to 13C but possibly reaching 15C for inland southern Britain on Sunday depending on the timing of the warm sector and rain. Both days look to have nippy starts with temperatures inland down near to freezing and there will be some fog for the Midlands and northern England. The air is cool and will feel cold with any wind or rain.
For London this weekend - Saturday looks fair, it should be dry and bright with a light westerly breeze and temperatures up to 10C, so fine in sheltered sunshine but feeling cool in the shade. It will be nippy overnight and early on Sunday. There is a chance that the morning will stay dry although with increasing cloud cover. Currently, the wind will pick up in the afternoon and the rain arrive later in the day but there is some uncertainty around the timing of the rainband.
For those who have attended parades over the years or decades, you will have known wind and rain, cold with frost, even sunshine and warmth.
Last year was freakishly warm. Porthmadog in Gwynedd saw 21.2C (70.2F), the warmest Remembrance Sunday on record for the UK. It beat the previous record by more than two degrees set 33 years ago, also in Gwynedd.
England and Scotland also saw records broken for the warmest Remembrance Day. 19.2C (67F) in Bridgefoot, Cumbria and 17.2C (63F) in Aviemore and Armistice Day has also seen records broken in the same warm spell.
I can remember one parade in Grampian with snow on the ground but that was better than the downpours of the year that followed. My saved instructions for our attending Girlguiding unit, which I return to each year, include a paragraph about what to wear for the exposed coastal war memorial event. This year will feel quite different to last year, it seems that the weather for Remembrance can vary wildly.
