Mild air out, colder air in as January draws to a close.

It’s been so mild this weekend, but that will change as February approaches. This week is already turning colder from the NW as a cold front moves southwards bringing a wet Monday morning to western Britain. It will feel colder everywhere, frost for some, with spells of wet and windy weather, particularly from the NW.

This morning the band of rain is our frontal divide with mild air to the SE and cooler conditions away to the north. The rain band moves southwards through the rest of England and Wales today, with heavy rain for Wales and the high ground of western England. Further east the rain is more patchy, or it just turns grey and damp for a time. As the front clears so do the skies and there will be brightness, sunny spells, a cooler feel to the air and blustery showers as the wind veers from a mild southwesterly to a cooler northwesterly. The showers will be wintry over the Highlands.

With temperatures today up to or already at 11 or 12C in the mild air, the Midlands, Wales and East Anglia will feel cooler by mid-afternoon. The weakening rain band will be over the south coast of England by then, so the mild air will fade later today.

Tonight will be noticeably colder, with a rural frost. Many towns and cities will be around +1 or +2c. The clearest skies will be over southern Britain tonight with patchy cloud from the scattered showers further north. With a super moon this week, the moon is closer to the earth than usual (so appears slightly bigger in the sky) and it is the second full moon of the month, hence “once in a blue moon”. And there will be a lunar eclipse but not visible here in the UK, where the earth gets in-between the sun and the moon and blocks out the light, making the moon look reddish. Available in Asia, Australia and NW America

With light winds in the SW, fog will form overnight, so a murky start for some on Tuesday. Overall it will be a fine morning with brightness and sunshine, a bit more of a breeze away to the NW. Frontal rain heads into NW Scotland by the afternoon turning things wet and blustery and there will be a weak weather front into Devon and Cornwall with more cloud and coastal dampness stretching across to the Channel Islands. This will wave along the Channel later in the day. Much of Britain will have a fine day but it will be windy with rain into Northern Ireland, western Scotland and through the Irish Sea by Tuesday evening.

Again, the cold front pushes down through the UK and with a low pressure centre diving down the North Sea, we will pull in a more northerly flow and it will feel colder ready for the start of February.