Chilly with showers and frost for now, turning milder next week

High pressure to the west and low pressure to the east and southeast is pulling down a cold northerly flow at the moment, the flow turning more northeasterly into the weekend, as high pressure to the west builds eastwards to be across northern Britain by the end of the weekend.

Chilly conditions will persist for the rest of the week and into the weekend, with a risk of showers across northern, central and eastern areas of Britain – which bring rain and hail and could fall wintry over higher ground.

Showers have developed inland this afternoon across central, eastern and SE England – due to the sun warming the ground causing convection of warm parcels of air upwards through the cold air. This evening and overnight, an occluded front looks to move south across Scotland – bringing a spell of sleet and snow inland before the precipitation generally peters out as it moves down into England, as the front weakens. Further showers developing tomorrow over central and eastern areas.

Chance to see partial lunar eclipse & blood worm moon in the western sky Friday morning between 6am-7am. Unfortunately cloud will increase from the north across many areas by then, as occluded front moves south, bringning snow inland across Scotland overnight. Far south & far north probably best.

Showers will tend to ease and fade into the weekend, as high pressure builds in from the west, so most places will have a dry weekend with more in the way of sunshine. But where skies clear overnight – there will continue to be a risk of frost, perhaps more widespread over the weekend.

It’s not a particularly potent northerly flow at the moment, considering it’s flowing directly from the arctic, even for early March. Any settling snow has generally been confined to high ground in the north over 200-300 metres, snow has, in the past, settled at low-levels on plenty of occasions in the second week of March.

For those who can’t stand the cold, the good news is that it will gradually turn milder next week, as winds veer southeasterly then eventually southerly later in the week. This will usher in much milder air.

The change back to milder conditions will occur due to high pressure over northern Britain to start the week drifting east across Scandinavia and the Baltic region, while a long-wave Atlantic trough moves in to the west of Europe by mid-week. The upper trough arriving to the west looks to disrupt / stall before forming a cut-off low which then looks to sink south to the west of Iberia during the second half of next week.

Watch how high pressure to the west at the moment slides east over the UK this weekend, then over to the east next week. This will mean winds turn southeasterly next week, so turning milder.

However, although it will turn milder, there is less confidence over whether it will turn unsettled across all parts, as the recent models runs seem to be backing away from this idea. Some showers look possible for a time across the west from mid-week, perhaps some into southern England too, depending on which model you look at. They disagree on shower distribution because of lowering confidence of the position and speed of trough disruption and closed-low formation next week to the west.

But, generally, it looks mostly dry next week, as high pressure looks to have more influence than low pressure – which will be way to the west and eventually southwest.

Temperatures will recover into the low teens on Tuesday across the south, then more widely mid-week,  after hovering slightly below average in single digits now and through the weekend. Later next week some models suggest temperatures reaching the mid-teens across eastern areas. It could be windy for a time though mid-week, before winds ease later in the week.

A different story for SW Europe – with Spain and Portugal remaining unsettled with Storm Konrad moving east across Iberia bringing rain to many parts to end this week, followed by further areas of low pressure spinning in from the Atlantic bringing more spells of rain or heavy showers through the weekend and next week too. Low pressure close-by to Iberia next week bolstered by the cut-off upper low dropping south to the west following Atlantic trough disruption early next week.