High pressure brings calm conditions and allows frost and fog to form in the chiller nights. A cold front midweek is followed by a different Atlantic High but dry, often sunny for many.
High pressure will rule the roost this week. That will bring a good deal of fair, often dry weather. Very little rain for central and eastern England but weather fronts will reach western Scotland. It will be cold by night with frost and fog but by day it will still feel a bit weird for January. Still confusingly mild, like the weather is tricking us and at any point, the Snow Queen will charge over the horizon and throw proper winter at us all. That might be wishful thinking or just channelling the latest Daily Star conjecture.
A winter storm is continuing to affect the eastern states of the US. There has been heavy snow with ice causing disruption and power outages. Our current western Europe high pressure shifts over central Europe but after a midweek cold front, an Atlantic high pressure builds in from the west. This will keep any eastern seaboard weather fronts at bay as a huge block although blustery winds will affect the far north of Scotland.
An interesting occurrence on UK (and world) barograph traces at the weekend showed two pressure blips from the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Hacabapai eruption. Saturday pressure traces showed the disturbance first arriving in the evening and then travelling from around the other side of the world in the small hours of Sunday morning. Like ripples on a pond when a stone is thrown in. There was a tsunami and a huge volcanic ash cloud. Communications with the Tonganese island are still minimal.
A nippy start this morning for Northern Ireland, Wales and much of England with frost in places. Temperatures will be around 5 to 8C with hardly any breeze. A calm, dry day with sunshine. There will be some cloud about for NW England and western Scotland but still fair. Temperatures in the north will be 7 to 9C with a fresh west wind for the far north of Scotland.
The breeze will keep stirring the atmosphere overnight for western Scotland as temperatures elsewhere dip down to zero or just below. Fog will form, particularly for southern, eastern and central England. This will be thick, even freezing in places and will linger well into Tuesday morning. It will feel cold where the fog or grey low cloud lingers. There will be changes from the northwest as Atlantic weather fronts edge in. An occluding front for Tuesday pm followed by a cold front for Wednesday. Patchy rain will reach Northern Ireland by lunchtime on Tuesday, into western Scotland for the afternoon. As a SW breeze picks up it will feel milder here. The rain then gathers itself over the Highlands for Tuesday evening. The more active cold front will push southwards during Tuesday night with some heavier rain and a veer in the wind direction. To a colder NW breeze. It won’t be as cold further south overnight, but the rain will fragment as it reaches northern England.
By dawn on Wednesday, there will be a band of cloud and showery outbreaks over north Wales, the Yorkshire Dales and the Peak District but not too much more. As the fading front moves further south the skies clear behind and there will be winter sunshine but with a colder feel to things. Even snow showers for the Scottish mountains as the cold northwest wind sets in.
