Brief drier respite before unsettled weather returns, ex-Hurricane Kirk may visit later next week

At last, a few days dry and sunny respite after what has been a rather damp and dull spell of weather since the weekend, especially across large parts of England. Low pressure that moved in across southern Britain on Monday took a while to clear east over the near continent, with northeasterly winds bringing a lot of cloud and showery rain in its wake. However, high pressure is now building, centred over northern Britain today, which will mean most places will be dry with more in the way of sunshine than recently.

However, the dry and sunnier weather will be short-lived, as high pressure retreats to allow low pressure to gradually muscle in from the west and have increasing influence over our weather over the weekend and through next week too. So much so, that we may even have an ex-hurricane in the mix later next week. More on this in a bit.

High pressure in charge today and Friday, but retreats east into the weekend to allow unsettled conditions to return from the west for all on Sunday

At the moment, the upper flow has weakened enough over northern Europe to allow a ridge of high pressure to build for a few days, with a fairly weak jet stream split way to the north and south. However, the jet stream looks to strengthen over the North Atlantic into the weekend and take aim at the UK. Although low pressure will be parked up to the west of the UK over the weekend, frontal systems will push east across the UK, so although Saturday looks largely dry and sunny in the east, fronts will bring outbreaks of rain erratically eastwards into western areas, before spreading slowly east across all areas on Sunday. It will become windier across all parts too.

Low pressure taking over this weekend and dominating next week

First half of next week looks to see a fairly deep area of low pressure move in off the Atlantic across southern Ireland on Monday, before filling and moving northeast across mainland UK by Wednesday. So remaining windy with heavy showers or longer spells of rain affecting many areas.

Ex-Hurricane Kirk eyes NW Europe next week

Then attention turns to remnant low of ex-Hurricane Kirk which models have for a while been indicating to track towards northwest Europe. Kirk, now a major hurricane, is moving northwest over the Atlantic, currently around 20N. The category 3 hurricane currently has maximum sustained winds of 127mph with gusts of up to 155mph.

It should make its extratropical transition next week (no longer a hurricane) north of the Azores and could be picked up by a vast Atlantic trough towards NW Europe and carried by the jet stream towards NW Europe. Today's 00z GEFS (ensemble) mean takes track over southern UK, but that doesn't mean strongest winds will be here, rather they would be on southern flank of low over France.

But the track could go further north or south of the mean. Still a long way to go, 7 days out to when it may arrive, models appear to be converging on track of a deep low (ex-Kirk) moving into NW Europe, but timing is the largest difference followed by track, for now.

How the ex-tropical system interacts and phases with upper trough over the NW Atlantic and the jet stream at its base next week will be crucial in determining the low's track and deepening as it approaches northwest Europe. More runs needed, but we will be keeping a close eye on the storm over coming days. As there is potential it could cause disruption later next week.