The dry, stable air mass continues to sit over British air space and in fact with pressures rising across England, the sunshine has extended further south today bringing not only much needed sunshine but also warmer temperatures. The persistently clear skies, light winds and dry air has allowed for another day with large diurnal temperature swings, particularly over sheltered Highland and Grampian Glens.

Following an above average high of 10C yesterday, Aboyne, Aberdeenshire dropped sharp at sunset last night with a 6C drop between 5-6pm from 6.8C to 0.8C. Illustrative of dry air’s ability to cool fast with the right conditions. By 11pm, Aboyne was down to -6C and by 3am this morning it bottomed out at an impressive -8.1C (17F) thanks to nightlong clear skies and light winds.

Like we saw with the rapid cooling at sunset last night, the same location quickly warmed this morning. With a gradual warming between 3-9am, a steeper rise came once the sun came up with a 1pm reading already up over 11C. The high today topped at least 12.1C, that’s a 20C rise from last night which is fairly significant by UK standards.

Every so often at this time of year with plenty of cold air suspended aloft but with just the right thickness values and 5,000ft temps, along with a strengthening late February sun, nights can still get very cold with severe frosts but days turn pleasantly warm. The same can happen in autumn, however it’s late winter which brings the greatest diurnal swings due to the mature winter mid and upper atmosphere in which very cold air quickly sinks by night down to the surface.

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As the core of our friend, the dominant high pressure system, slides slightly west of the UK, it will allow a weak front to sink south over Scotland tonight and tomorrow, eventually pushing into France. This will bring a return to cloudier skies for Scotland and by Friday, England and Wales too, sorry! Though cloudy,l it stays dry with the exception of an odd light shower here and there. As well as an increase in cloud, a cooler northwest flow kicks in this weekend.

Initially the ECMWF had a trough drop south early to mid next week bringing a return to much colder weather to the UK and Ireland. However recent runs have shown a mild upper ridge holding firm, therefore deflecting a significant cold blast into eastern Europe. This is worth keeping an eye on though as I wouldn’t rule out a return to colder weather next week. The worst of what could be one of the coldest pushes of air yet (believe it or not), takes aim at countries well to our east.

Here’s the latest ECMWF this weekend into next week.

Sat

Mon

Wed

With an overall dry picture looking down the road, we appear to be on track for a drier than normal March. Does that mean a colder or warmer than normal month ahead. That remains uncertain, however, given the strongly negative arctic oscillation and the continued negative NAO, this looks likely to promote a colder first half of March and quite possibly the month overall may end up a little below normal. The emphasis will be on the amount of precipitation that falls as I want you to really start paying attention to this. The amount of rainfall we get during March and April as the warmer months approach have significant influence on our summer.

As stated in a recent post, I expect a la nina to develop this summer, this should encourage drier than normal conditions across western Europe certainly through late summer into autumn and next winter. The way the pattern appears to have flipped after a stubborn 11 month wet cycle, this feedback to a neutral ENSO has already begun the drying out process.

Will post later what the JAMSTEC long range model is saying for spring and summer.

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