All change with the Easter weekend weather. Gone are the strong, cold winds from the east, there will be warmth, sunshine and light winds. On with your cycling plans.
Looking good for Easter weekend. The recent easterly wind has been quite a chore. Cold, fresh to strong and relentless. It's come our way around a High pressure and they don't move much. So when one sets up camp over Scandinavia (Scandi-High) it often stays for a while. Around this will churn a cool easterly wind, across the currently chilly North Sea (only 8 or 9C at this time of year) and often bring dry but cold conditions. These highs can bring clear blue skies and sunshine or the depressing greyness of anticyclonic gloom. Even though it looks fine outside, the reality can be quite grim. There is a word in Iceland for this, Gluggaveður, (deceptive) "window weather". Looks nice but isn't.
However, a shift from the high pressure will stop the cold flow and instead warmth is on the way, for a Bank Holiday weekend no less!
It will also be less windy and still dry. For the start of the week, the UK was at the edge of the high with low pressures skirting past. You can see plenty of isobars on the synoptic chart for Tuesday over Scotland where there is a fresh east wind, but more widely spaced for southern Britain where winds are light. Quite a change after Monday's rain and gusts. Gradually through this week pressure builds over the UK and the winds diminish.
By the weekend much warmer air will have moved up through Europe, resulting in air temperatures in the high teens, low twenties even possibly up to 24 or 25C. The wind chart below shows east to southerly winds across the UK on Friday afternoon, light to moderate.
With more sunshine and heat, the pollen levels will also rise. It's tree pollen at this time of year. UV levels will rise, whether it's sunny or just bright. Get the sunscreen on and protect your eyes too.
Air pollution levels are also forecast to rise, not NO2 from urban traffic, which could be reduced over the holiday weekend but from particulate matter as the air stagnates under the high pressure and the winds remain light.
Early Saturday, light winds across the UK, with just a moderate SW wind picking up for Scotland by the afternoon. Not bad at all, fine, dry and sunny,
Sunday morning another calm start, more dry, bright weather and hardly any wind. There is the risk of some rain, from a front coming down from the NW, so Scotland and Northern Ireland but there is uncertainty about this part of the forecast, the progress of the front against the established high pressure, so worth checking back on the forecast here. Similar on Easter Monday, for most it will be another fine day but there could be a band of rain from the west with Ireland looking most prone to a change in the settled conditions.
For more details for your route or location, check out the 7-day forecast. Little need for the Netweather Radar (away from the far NW to end the weekend) with so much dry weather.
