Anticyclone to dominate the UK weather pattern this week

Strong winds and heavy rain are off the menu for quite a while, as pressure continues to slowly rise. By mid-week there'll be a large anticyclone over the country giving quiet weather, but with a lot of cloud for much of the time. So sunshine generally will be limited, but it'll be mild and where the sun does come through, it'll feel quite pleasant in mostly light winds.

Weak embedded troughs continue to give mainly light rain or drizzle in places, with a lot of mist, fog in places and very low cloud overnight especially across England and Wales. This should largely have cleared into the North Sea by dawn, but most places will still be waking to a lot of cloud and mist on Tuesday morning. But it'll be mild, with mostly sheltered parts of East Scotland where skies break turning chilly.

Tuesday continues to see pressure slowly rising from the South, largely squeezing any remaining rain out of already weak systems crossing the country. But it'll be a damp, gloomy start for some with patchy mostly light rain or drizzle, especially towards coasts and over hills in the West exposed to a mainly light West or South Westerly breeze.

Most places keep a lot of cloud, but skies should brighten particularly where you have shelter. Places such as East Scotland, North East England, to the lee of the Welsh mountains and some other parts of southern and eastern England could well see a few sunny intervals coming through. Where you're lucky enough to see these for any length of time it could become particularly pleasant, with temperatures into the afternoon perhaps getting as high as 16 or 17C. Even where you keep the cloud it'll still be mild, with temperatures from North to South more generally reaching 11 to 15C.

After dark, East Wales and sheltered southern and eastern areas should see the best of any clearances, but there'll still be generally large amounts of cloud. It'll become misty again fairly generally, with patchy fog reforming in mostly light winds. For most it'll be another fairly mild night but where skies stay clear it'll turn chilly, with a touch of grass frost possible in some sheltered glens of East Scotland by dawn.

With a large anticyclone dominating the remainder of the week, you can expect a lot of dry, quiet weather. But it'll often be damp even with a little drizzle here and there, and Halloween could be made more spooky by patches of mist and fog. The North may be breezier and a little more unsettled for a time though, with some showers these mostly over Scotland. And eventually with more holes appearing in the cloud sheet, the risk of a touch of frost at night will increase as the weather turns a little colder towards the weekend.