Hope you made the most of this latest surge of warmth because we’re about to get a hard slap of reality as cold air flows south once again. Our cold spring continues.

Temperatures today were 2-4C down on yesterday, especially across the Northern UK where the warmest temperatures have been. Tomorrow will be an additional 1-3C off today and by Thursday we could see northern and eastern parts of the UK struggle to even make 6-8C, factor in a stiff northerly wind blowing straight from the arctic and it feels more like late March and not late May. Low pressure sliding south over the North Sea looks close enough to bring rain onto the east coast, this will add to the miserible late May weather.

Take a look at just how cold this air mass is coming down. The GFS has -5C at 850mb. That’s cold for this time of the year, of course the strong late May sun will fight hard and hold surface temperatures above freezing but it’s a struggle when the atmosphere has a thick cloud deck and rain falling from it. If that happens with a strong northerly flow in the mid and upper levels, the strong rays of the sun have a hard time getting surface temperatures much above 6C even during the day and that is a concern Thursday afternoon.

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Certainly above 2,000ft, we could well see precipitation fall as snow with a fresh covering on higher hills.

Here’s the GFS snow projection through 42 hours. Obviously not all the white will produce but the area with blue shading over the Highlands, perhaps Grampians, above 3,000ft could well see an inch or two of snow with below freezing temperatures and even colder wind chills throughout the day Thursday.

Western areas of the UK and indeed NI and Ireland should see more in the way of sunshine and with that sunshine, despite cold air at 5,000ft, temperatures should respond well with a range of 12-15C but you’ll notice that chilly north wind that’s for sure.

The air mass moderates this weekend as the arctic connection is lost witth the low becoming cut off and I suspect we shall be dealing with a sunshine and shower regime. It may also be clear enough with light winds by night in which we may see some light and patchy ground frost late week towards the weekend.

Both GFS and ECMWF have a rather benign pattern through next week with upper level low pressure dominant. The upper atmosphere has a large field of lower than normal heights with no well defined centre. This suggests a relatively stable, even settled pattern but that cooler air suspended in the mid and upper levels will always be a trigger for shower activity. The models may shift back and fourth on next week.

I still believe there may be a window worth watching sometime around June 3-6th for building heights over the UK. While there’s no solid model guidance of this, the NAO ensembles still shows a more positive trend once we enter June and so i’ll be closely watching this period for our next potential spell of warmth and perhaps the first longer spell of warmth.

Up until now it’s been a day here, a day there of warmth, then back to colder, more unsettled weather and the NAO being on a persistent negative trend has made this pattern so far, fairly predictable.

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