Courtesy of Mark Vogan
The next few days will see an increase in dense mist, fog and cloud across particularly England and Wales with a ridge drawing mild and moist from off the near continent. It’s acting like a lid on top of a moist low level atmosphere. This supports the formation of widespread mist and fog and that lid, stops it from clearing quickly with no wind to be had. The time of year has a lot to do with this and had this exact setup been a month ago, any mist or fog which formed would quickly burn off but the sun is weak now. As the title says, these foggy setup’s at this time of year are often a precursor to coming cold and that will certainly be the case by weeks end.
The well advertised cold shall shove the northward creeping warm front back south along with the jet stream and a cold arctic air mass will cover Scotland and the North of England by Friday and the rest of the UK by Saturday.
At least the moisture and rather gloomy skies get cleaned out. The down side is your going to think we’ve skipped the rest of October and possibly November and went straight to early December with the air mass that’s coming down.
The question right now is how cold and where do we see snow?
Here’s the upper chart off the ECMWF for tomorrow.
Daytime temperatures on Friday will likely be no warmer than 7C across the majority of Scotland and Northern England with some Highland communities struggling to hit freezing. Inverness may only max out near 4C, Glasgow 5C, Edinburgh 6C but factor in a north wind at 10 mph and it feels like freezing or below. Any precipitation should be a rain/sleet to sea level with all snow possibly right to the coast across the North. Aberdeen an exp. There could be snow showers from Glasgow across to Edinburgh, say Friday night when the cold air mass becomes more established and the temperature has dropped from during the day.
However keep in mind that northerly winds are dry and often moisture starved. Night lows will be cold with a widespread frost and ice potential. If winds blow, then ice, not frost will be the threat but a wind chill may be significant with an air temperature near freezing. It’s going to feel like winter out there and you’ll need a WINTER coat if venturing out and about, especially clubbers!
Here’s Friday
Saturday will see the cold air mass covering the UK and this will support highs of only 5 or 6C in Manchester and Birmingham and 7 or 8C in London but like in Scotland, winds blowing from the north, which will reinforce the chill should make for a wind chill near or below freezing. Sleet MAY reach London but it’s more likely to the north. The Pennines may see a dusting and some low level areas of Northern England may see a surprise dusting like Scotland may.
Saturday night may see the coldest night with lighter winds and with an early December air mass in place, I wouldn’t be surprised to see lows fall to -10C in the Highlands, -4 or -5C from the Central Belt to Midlands and -3C in London but this would be IF, skies were clear and winds light.
Here’s the ECMWF chart for Saturday.
Let’s hope this is not the only cold spell we get.