After the excitement of the solar eclipse back on Friday combined with the spring equinox and super moon, it’s back to normality this upcoming week. Hope your all enjoying your weekend.

A brief look at the week ahead…

We had, for many, a stunning Saturday with plenty of mild sunshine under clear blue skies. Highs of 10-14C followed a chilly, frosty start and it was all thanks to a resurge of high pressure. That feature retreats once again as we commence the new working week and we find ourselves under a chilly NW flow with heavy and at times blustery showers embedded. A frontal system riding NW to SE over the UK will weaken as it enters a higher pressure field. Look for chilly daytime highs as the breeze, cloud and source of air all have negative effect.

As we head for Tuesday-Wednesday so high pressure rebuilds again and look for more cool but sunnier days following cold nights with a widespread frost likely.

The next system kicks out the high and brings the return of wetter, windier conditions by Thursday. The front will always slow crossing the UK as high pressure attempts to hold ground. Always that bit drier, warmer the further east you are.

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Here’s the latest GFS surface charts for the upcoming week.

So to summarise, our pattern becomes a little more mobile or westerly this week but this more unsettled theme is broken up by ridging in between lows. Notice by next weekend we’ve a more southern track system with a chilly air mass and westerly flow across Ireland and the UK into the continent.

Looking ahead…

Last week of March – first week of April

The westerly orientation of our mean upper air pattern is likely to continue into early April with a day of low pressure followed by cool, blustery showers on the backside the next then ridging ahead of the next system.

As we head for April’s 2nd week I recon we may see ridging trying to build in and hold for several days based on modelling and a rise in the positive NAO.

CFSv2 weeklies show westerly pattern dominating week 2 and 3 then relaxation with positive over the UK/West Europe week 4.

GFS ensemble (global view) shows the mean ridge between the Azores and UK which tells me that we may go between a westerly and ‘flirt with ridging’ pattern. Won’t take much for that Azores high to push in, especially given the US pattern and return to more trough which may strengthen the +NAO signal forcing heights to rise closer to the UK.

This potential warmer, drier setup would be in response to the return of a colder eastern North America pattern with a trough deepening and in response this forces a stronger +NAO and amplification downwind. The ripple effect.

The MJO is progressing east across the Pacific and this is helping forcing a -EPO and strengthening Alaska ridge. Some major cold will end March over the Eastern US where records are likely to fall. This ties in with a firmly +NAO pattern that’s held strong in the last really 2 years, helped by the solar max, warm NE Pacific/cold N Atlantic. I’m struggling to see much change in SST’s over the next 6 months although it will be interesting to see how much the El Nino will get going.

Video coming up shortly!

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