There is a change on the way. Yes, it is still raining in many parts of the UK and the ground is still soggy. Instead of just rain warnings, there are shift to Snow & Ice warnings later on Thursday and for Friday. The UK will see a turn to colder conditions briefly for the end of this week. There will be sunshine on Saturday, welcome sunshine after all of this wet and gloomy weather.
Aberdeen hasn’t seen the sun in almost three weeks and has had twice its average February rainfall in the first ten days of the month. And there are still numerous flood warnings in southern Britain along rivers, and due to high groundwater levels.
However, a shift in our stuck weather pattern will take place in the second half of this week. Colder air will tuck behind a low pressure and reach down through the UK, with some frosty nights and a bit of snow. There will be clear skies for Friday night followed by glorious sunshine on Saturday, before a new Atlantic frontal system brings high cloud in from the west. This is a short-lived sunny/cold episode. Back to rain by Saturday night into Sunday morning.
The change will occur as today’s low pressure powers eastwards, heading over Germany, northern Poland to the Baltic States. Linked to this is a secondary low centre which will move across France tonight with its weather fronts trailing over Portugal and Spain. This is Nils, the next storm name from the southwestern group. This has been named by Meteo France but is also unwelcome news for storm-hit Iberia, where there are still problems with flooding. Most of France is covered in weather warnings: rain, wind, large waves, flooding, landslides, and thunderstorms. There are also wind warnings for Spain, for coastal conditions around the Bay of Biscay, and concerns for central and northern Portugal, still recovering from Kirstin.
Netweather Radar Weds 11th 12:50 with top ten windspeeds
The UK has a mess of occluded fronts bringing rain over northern England, Northern Ireland and the southern half of Scotland on Wednesday. This will increasingly turn to snow over the high ground of inland Britain as the colder air begins to seep in.
“Isolated flooding from rivers and surface water is likely across Fife and the North East, and also areas of western and central Scotland, on Wednesday due to persistent rain, heavy at times.” Scottish flood forecast
Rain from Nils will clip southern England this afternoon and evening, moving eastwards along the English Channel. It is just showing on the radar above in the western end of the Channel.
This is the start of things shifting. That a low pressure will manage to move on and not remain stuck to the southwest of the UK. There will be rain, you will hear it along Channel coasts after dark, but it will progress. This is not the case further north. The wet and increasingly wintry weather remains entrenched. It continues to feed in from the North Sea with a brisk easterly wind for Scotland, which will back to the northeast in the small hours of Thursday.
As these low centres move over central Europe on Thursday, the weather will likely deteriorate over the Alps and northern Italy. This could impact the Winter Olympics, for the men’s moguls and the women’s Super-G on Thursday morning.
By Thursday morning, there will be a band of showery rain from Northern Ireland over Wales and along the M4. In the afternoon, there will be more rain around the Irish Sea with the wet and wintry weather over Scotland sinking southwards. This will turn more showery with sunshine for northern Scotland before a band of sleet and snow showers arrives. Aberdeenshire could see the sun by Thursday afternoon!
By the end of Thursday, everything will be shifting southwards over the UK. The main stubborn rain band will be a central swathe of the UK, especially for north Wales. The colder air will be edging down from the north, with snow over the high ground of northern England as clearing skies and snow showers follow.
The progress southwards slows during Thursday night as a new low centre forms to the southwest. By Friday, there will be more rain for Wales and southern England. All the areas of SW Britain which have seen flooding problems recently and the areas with high groundwater levels. On the back edge, there will be snow over the Peak District, the Welsh mountains and sleet with icy rain for other hills. Further north will be brighter, sunnier but colder conditions.
The change to colder air, still mild in SW England at 9C but elsewhere only 2 to 6C
A low pressure in the North Sea will throw bands of snow showers over NE and E.Britain. These will be well scattered with a lot of dry weather appearing.
Clusters of snow showers could run along the Yorkshire coast overnight into north Norfolk, which might mean some people awake to a few cms of snow on Saturday morning. The North Yorkshire Moors look prone.
It will be cold and frosty, there will be ice but also sunshine!. A brief ridge of high pressure will bring a settled chilly Saturday before high cloud reaches Northern Ireland in the afternoon. Make the most of it if you can.
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