High pressure will be the main player in the UK's weather right through next week, bringing mostly settled conditions. Although, with easterly winds, there'll be more cloud and even some showery rain in southern and eastern regions.
A generally settled spell of weather is coming up, with high pressure over Scandinavia currently ridging south-westwards over to Britain. During the coming week, this high will increasingly ridge across to the north and northeast of Britain, bringing predominantly easterly winds.
This means that southern and eastern parts of England will sometimes be predominantly cloudy, perhaps with some rain or showers heading into the south and south-west at times, but in Scotland and Northern Ireland and north-west England, the weather will generally be sunny and dry.
Sunday will be a generally cloudy day for much of the country, but there will be some sunshine for eastern England, northern Scotland and Northern Ireland. In the sunnier areas, it will be rather warm, with highs of 15 to 17C in some inland parts of Northern Ireland and northern Scotland, and parts of East Anglia and the southeast may reach 15 or 16C. It will be cooler where the cloudier skies persist. Some light rain is likely in western and central areas early in the day, but this will tend to fizzle out. A mild night is expected on Sunday night with temperatures not falling below 8 to 10C in many areas, though again in parts of eastern England, particularly East Anglia, with clear skies, temperatures will fall as low as 3 or 4C in some places.
The easterly winds will develop in eastern England on Monday and will spread to other parts of the UK on Tuesday. Monday will start off cloudy in many areas, but as the easterly flow develops, clear sunny weather will spread from the east, and most areas will see a maximum temperature between 14 and 17C, though it will be much cooler near the east coast of England. Tuesday also looks set to be warm and sunny in the west but turning cooler generally in the east of both England and Scotland, where highs of 10 to 12C will be more typical.
Between Wednesday and Friday, we can generally expect more cloud in central, southern and eastern England, this extending into Wales at times also, and some light rain is expected to head in off the North Sea into the south and south-east of England and East Anglia at times. We can also expect some sharp showers in the West Country. However, for much of the country, it will remain dry, and there will be plenty of sunshine in Scotland (with the possible exception of the east coast, where there may be cloud coming in off the North Sea at times), Northern Ireland and north-west England. It will consistently be coolest near North Sea coasts due to the onshore winds, but elsewhere temperatures will tend to be about average for the time of year.
Beyond next week, confidence is quite high that the high pressure to the north will push southwards, maintaining the dry and settled outlook for the UK and pushing the cloudier and less settled weather away from southern England, while the easterly wind over Britain will slacken off somewhat, resulting in it warming up by day near North Sea coasts.
