A strong anticyclone dominates not just the UK and Ireland but pretty much the whole of Europe these days with most areas void of cloud cover.

Here’s is that anomalous positive gracing our skies and helping raise our spirits.

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Interestingly when looking at the initial ECMWF sea level pressure field, there’s nowhere over our continent (except the far east, up against the Asia border) where pressure is lower than 1020mb. Note the core is positioned just east of the UK at around 1040mb.

Despite pressure being strong, it’s not the warmest of air masses and by that I mean you only have to go back two years ago when we saw temperatures in the low 20s C or 70s F over Scotland which set new March heat benchmarks. This time around, it’s a more typical spring high with typical daytime warmth at 15 or 16C over the Northern UK, around 18 to 20C in the South with cool, crisp nights. The wet ground will be playing a role but 850 temps aren’t all that exceptional.

What is very interesting though is that with this modestly mild air mass with pleasant spring days are cooling quick once the sun goes down. Clear skies, light winds and most importantly, dry air provides fairly large diurnal temperature swings. A warmer high pressure system would likely contain more moisture and thus loose heat less.

Perfect Environment: Aboyne Goes From High Of 15.4C to Low of -6.5C Within 24 Hours

We saw a fairly cold morning across many areas where skies remained clear. The past few morning’s across Scotland, northern England and Ireland have seen a decent frost. Aboyne, Aberdeenshire took the prize with a low of -6.5C. That’s interesting on two levels. 1, it was off a high barely 15 hours previous which topped 15.4C which was Scotland’s top temperature to date, what a swing but it was also colder than any morning witnessed during December, January and February. Geography and a perfect atmosphere allowed this 20C+ temperature swing.

The strong ridge produced these glorious skies above Dumfries and Galloway late this morning.

The pressure field across Europe flips on it’s head in the coming 5 days.

We have a huge 500mb height contrast coming up… check these anomaly charts for late weekend into early next week. The impressive ridge doesn’t so much burst but gets shunted to the southwest as a major trough descends upon Scandinavia.

120 hrs

144 hrs

Modelling takes N Scandinavia thicknesses into brutal sub-500dc territory which will be in stark contrast to those over southern Spain. While highs climb into the low, perhaps mid-20s next week in such cities as Seville, we may see central Sweden communities fail to reach -15C.

While Scandinavia returns to wintertime cold, snow should impact many central and eastern parts of the continent while spring warmth will continue across much of Iberia.

ECMWF snow forecast through 168 hrs

GFS

Looks like the UK and Ireland will be in the battle ground between air masses. We may see a back and forth between mild and cool… Modelling does show that we get on the cold side of the boundary at times and that means days which may hold in the 3-5C range with biting NW winds. It’s a fluid situation that can also bring surprise snowfall too. Well worth paying close attention.

Here’s the latest ECMWF surface charts through next week.

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