After a very mild, sunny end to the week, there's more cloud about to start the weekend. The weather is heading into a less settled, slightly cooler mood for a few days too, but the very mild, settled weather will be back.
Rhyl in North Wales was the warmest place in the UK yesterday, reaching a mighty impressive 17.5c, almost 11c warmer than the average high at this time of year. The UK temperature record for February is 19.7c set back in 1998, so a little way off that, but the Welsh record of 18.6c wasn't quite so far away. (update from Met Office, Rhyl reached 18.2C on Friday 15th)
It'll not be quite as warm today with more cloud around, but even so, highs will widely be up into double figures, with some spots rising into the teens. We'll stay in that sort of range through the weekend, although we'll see some cooler air arriving from the west on Sunday. Later next week, with deeper southerly winds looking set to make a return we could close in on record-breaking warmth for the time of year once again.
With the extra cloud, there is also some rain about today, chiefly in the north and west (a phrase you're going to be getting used to hearing through the rest of this month and maybe beyond), and mostly showery with drizzly bits and pieces up over the hills. In amongst the greyer skies, there'll also be some sunnier breaks, especially but not exclusively to the east of higher ground.
Later in the day, a band of rain will cross into Ireland, and that'll make it into western Britain on Sunday morning. Ahead of that, a milder night than of late with clear spells and therefore any frost patches at a premium. During Sunday, the rain in the west will head slowly east fading and becoming more showery as it does.
The wet weather will be along a cold front, so behind it will be fresher, cooler air with sunny spells and a decent scattering of showers. To the east of it, during the first half of the day especially, there'll also be some bright or sunny periods, but the cloud will tend to fill in again as the day moves on.
Temperatures tomorrow will be up a touch on today in eastern and central parts with highs of 13-15c, perhaps 16c in some spots. To the west though, 8-11c will be more like it.
A chillier night follows across the northern half of the country, with lows well down into single figures, and some of the showers turning wintry over the hills. Further south it's milder though, with plenty of cloud hanging about.
Into next week, Monday brings a day of sunshine and showers. The showers (here comes that phrase again) will mostly be in northern and western parts, but there could be a few elsewhere, especially in southern and southeastern regions.It'll be another fresher day with highs not so far from the norm in the north and west, but still a good few degrees milder than average in the east. After some frost and ice overnight, many of the showers should have gone by Tuesday morning. That's due to a brief ridge building ahead of a spell of wind and rain which will fairly speedily sweep in from the west.
The rain is set to cross into Ireland by the afternoon, before quite quickly moving across into western and northern parts of Britain by the end of the day. Central and eastern parts are likely to avoid the wet weather, but all regions will turn blustery with gales possible in both Northern and the Republic of Ireland, along with western parts of Britain.
These are the rain totals for Tuesday, as the wet weather moves in:
It'll take well into Wednesday for the rain to clear away to the northeast, then we're looking set to head back into a similar pattern to the one we saw this week. With high pressure over the continent starting to move further north and east, and low pressure out to our west helping to draw up warmer air from well south of the British Isles again. Just like this week, it does look possible that the low pressure to the west may be close enough to allow some showery rain and stronger winds to affect the north and west at times, but the drier, brighter weather will be the main weather type for the majority.
Temperatures by this point are liable to move back up into the mid-teens or so with 18c+ not out of the question. The overall February record I mentioned earlier doesn't look in imminent danger, but it maybe something to keep an eye on at least.