The gloom and grey skies continue into the weekend but there is hope. Some parts of the UK have seen sunshine and warmth but for many, it has been cool and dull. Roll on sunny Monday.
Monday looks sunny finally. It's been nearly a fortnight of grey, dull weather for most of the UK. Under the oppressive blanket of stratocumulus cloud, it felt cool, even cold as the featureless cloak continued. It is known as anticyclonic gloom, and gloomy it has been. However, not everyone has been stuck with dullness. There have been breaks allowing brightness and even sunshine in a few regions. Northern Scotland has been particularly favoured for the end of the working week, and so has Ireland.
A summary of the November sunshine hours so far thanks to Starlings Roost. Looking back a bit further, St Andrews has also been doing well in the sunshine stakes, with 36 hours of sun in the past 11 days compared to a paltry 18 minutes in Basingstoke. (BBC weather til 7th Nov)
Not only was there sunshine by day for Highland Scotland, but the clear skies by night coincided with the Aurora. Favoured for sunshine, and seeing the Northern Lights.
The overall flow is from the south around high pressure over central Europe. This southerly flow is very mild, but at this time of year, sunshine and a bit of air stirring are needed. Under the cloud cover, the air is just stagnating and can’t recover after the cool nights. This led to air quality issues around Bonfire Night as the smoke and fireworks particles became trapped in the air near the surface.
Air mass changes over the weekend which will shift the cloud cover.
The top temperatures so far this week have been 17.8C at Kinloss, Moray and Thomastown, Co.Fermanagh on Wednesday 6th and 18.9C on Thursday 7th at Kinlochewe, Highland.
Northern Scotland benefited from the Foehn Effect where mild air dries and warms after being forced up over high ground (the Grampian mountains in this case).
In Ireland, the provisional maximum temperature on Thursday was 19.2C at Phoenix Park, Co. Dublin, not far off the overall November record for Ireland of 20.1C in Co. Kerry on the 1st November 2015. We’re a week in, this is surprising warmth. Met Eireann also said that 11 of their 25 primary weather stations set new November maximum temperature records on the 7th. There was a high minimum of 14.6C at Valentia Observatory which was the third highest minimum temperature on record for November in Ireland.
The lack of sunshine is becoming quite a drag.
Jersey Met. “What a dull start to the month, with no sunshine at all recorded in Jersey so far in November, and the last time we saw any sun was 30th October 2024. Unfortunately, there's unlikely to be much sunshine until Monday.”
The Isle of Man is heading for one of its longest spells of no sunshine on record. Nearly at 10 days on Friday with 11 days looking very likely, and 12 probable.
There will be a shift but it will take until Monday.
The weekend
The blanket of cloud remains for Saturday but with breaks to the northwest. The winds will be very light but the southeasterly surface flow is drawing colder air off continental Europe and will make it feel cool again where the skies are grey. Midler air will continue to reach western Ireland with a more southerly flow. Again there will be sunshine in favoured areas to the lee of high ground but with the risk of early fog.
By Saturday night, we finally see Atlantic weather fronts making inroads against the long-lasting high pressure. Ahead of the fronts, there should be clear skies and in the cool air, temperatures will fall away towards zero in northeast rural parts of NE Britain. There will be patchy rain over Northern Ireland which will reach western Britain by dawn on Sunday.
For Remembrance Sunday, there will be bands of rain but Eastern Britain looks dry. It’s a mixed picture with lingering cloud, the change of some brightness breaking through and sunshine from the northwest. The change from this gloom will appear. A different air mass (Pm Polar Maritime) with brighter skies will follow the patchy frontal rain band. It’s from a colder source than the air we have seen all week from the south. For those who have been stuck under the cloud, it will just feel different as it’s not been warm at all for you.
Monday
By Monday morning there will be quite a dramatic change. Sunshine finally, but with a more autumnal crisp chill in the air for much of the UK. It could still be mild and cloudy first thing for southern England, taking a bit of time for the last of this gloomy grey cloud to clear away southwards. Then, let the sunshine in.
While December is not exactly known for its sunshine unsurprisingly the first tercile of the month has delivered less than 50% of the expected sunshine.
The unrelenting consistency of month after month of not just marginally below, but significantly...
-0.1c here with some mist, lethal black ice everywhere.
I would say 4 out of the 31 give a chance on the big day somewhere in the uk. Wrt 850’s but not looking at precipitation.
The chance of a toppler at the right time has reduced imo. When looking at the output it’s not hard to see why.
Tough going at the...
