Over the next week or so, the Atlantic will provide pulses of mild southwesterly air and cooler, even colder west to northwesterly flows. When the air has a more southerly component and the sun appears, we will see temperatures rising. We’ve already seen 19.2C north of London last week and England might reach 16 or 17C this week. Under all the grey cloud and murk, it will always feel cooler. It will also be windy at times this week.
As the winds veer, cooler air will arrive by midweek, then a wet and windy spell on Thursday, before colder air from the northwest. The frost risk will return. Thursday night into Friday will see showers turning wintry, with snow from the northwest.
Scotland had a cracking weekend with blue skies and sunshine away from the frontal band in the far northwest. The weekend's top UK temperatures were Altnaharra on Saturday with 13.7C and Edinburgh saw 10.6 hours of sunshine. It was cold under the clear skies on Saturday night and Aboyne was once again the coldest UK spot down to -5.6C with a hard frost, frozen puddles but bright sunshine by morning. Kinloss, Moray reached 13.3C on Sunday as Charterhall, Borders saw 9.8 hours of sunshine. Many other parts of the UK had a rather grey and damp weekend and felt much cooler than last week.
Birmingham will start the week around 12C, but by Friday will be at only 7C. Belfast might manage 11C in the early part of this week but could see snow by Friday morning and temperatures in the afternoon peaking at only 5C.
March can be a funny month. Cold with frost or sleet and snow one minute, then the warm spring sunshine makes people feel that winter can be left behind. It usually can’t be! There is hope as the hours of daylight increase and the spring flowers appear, but cold air can quickly reappear.
The Netweather Storm forecast has highlighted a slight thunderstorm risk for SE Britain on Monday as a few sharp showers develop in any sunny spells.
“On Monday,...instability will develop, with MUCAPE values often approaching 500 J/kg during the afternoon across SE England & E Anglia. Breeze convergence is expected to develop too, which could initiate some heavy showers and perhaps a few isolated weak thunderstorms here, tracking NE before fading after sunset.”
As Monday ends, it will be a mixed picture with gaps in the cloud cover, bands of patchy rain stretching SW to NE along fading weather fronts. The air isn’t cold yet, but where clear spells develop, temperatures could fall away down to 2 or 3C in rural spots.
A showery line over Scotland will edge eastwards reaching the far north of England tonight, as an occluded front arrives for the west coast of Scotland with more rain and fresh and gusty S/SW winds.
For southeastern England, conditions will turn murky but any overnight showers will soon clear by Tuesday morning with a light breeze.
Tuesday
There will be a lot of dry weather with cloudy areas and then gaps allowing bright or even sunny spells over England and eastern Scotland first thing. The incoming occlusion will bring showery outbreaks of rain across the Irish Sea, over Scotland and Cumbria with bits for western Wales and Cornwall by lunchtime. The SW wind will pick up during the day close to this rainband. Another pocket of showers will head across the channel to the Isle of Wight, but much of eastern England will see a fine day, perhaps reaching 14 or 15C. Showery outbreaks continue over the northwestern half of the UK as the southeastern half stays fine.
Another Atlantic weather system will be ploughing in from the west by the end of Tuesday. Rain and blustery southerly winds will reach Ireland by the evening as the winds freshen over Wales and northern Britain.
Also of note over Iberia is another low pressure. This is a rather slow-moving one but the southwestern storm (and DANA) naming group is up to ‘R’ already. Storm Regina brought plenty of rain last week. There are warnings of snowstorms for southern inland Spain on Tuesday, no name at this time for this low.
Deep cold over central Asia heading east as the Atlantic influence pushes in from the west this week
The frontal bands will occlude out as they move over Britain during Tuesday night. They will bring cloud and rain, blustery winds and mild air for a time in the south. Behind the merging weather fronts, there will be clear skies and a rash of showers from the northwest. The winds will veer through the night with gales possible for the Western Isles and a very windy end to the night across Scotland with sudden gusts.
The last of the frontal cloud and rain will soon clear away from London and Kent on Wednesday morning. Behind this will be the cooler westerly flow, but plenty of sunshine. So one of those days that looks great out of the window but won’t quite match up as you walk in it. The westerly wind will be light but noticeable for southern Britain and blustery and chilly further north. Northern Ireland will see a scattering of showers, mainly for the north coast, and Scotland will see plenty of blustery showers with snow over the mountains.
This pattern continues through Wednesday. A risk of showers from the west for Northern Ireland and Scotland, a few for NW England and western Wales but generally a dry and bright, even sunny midweek, but feeling cooler. Wednesday night turns windy again, so if you have anything that needs securing or moving, think about that now. It’s not a storm, but strong winds always sound worse at night and you might as well prepare now.
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