The 1st of 3 fronts has now exited Scotland heading SE’ward and as expected, we’ve an icy start here with SNOW showers now feeding in.

Here’s the view along the A82 near Glen Coe.

Winds will pick up from the NW today pushing through rain and hill snow showers. Don’t expect much of a warm-up despite any sun as this is our first ‘arctic air mass’.

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Tonight, clear skies and a decent frost/freeze with ice a bigger risk Saturday morning but Northwest areas see the next front pushing in bringing wet, blustery conditions and a rise in temperature. Where clear throughout the night, well it will be the coldest start for England with parts of Yorkshire maybe dipping towards -7C.

Next front pushes down from the NW through Saturday followed by another Sunday and it’s the front on Sunday which drives in somewhat colder air and thus there’s a greater chance at seeing snow to lower levels but only with showers. Temps during Monday will be pegged back to only 2-4C and factor in any NW breeze and it feels like it’s below freezing.

Here’s the surface chart Monday, notice the high building in ahead of the big North Atlantic low. That high will be cold as you can see from the 850s widely over the UK below -5C.

It’s a taste of winter for some while others will probably ask, where’s the snow?

Then we’ve got next week. Looks interesting when looking at the models. All models are consistent at deepening a low to the south of Iceland below 950 or even 945mb. Why such a deep low? Just look at the thermal contrast we’ve got over the Atlantic. Warm, moist sub-tropical air will get pulled north while -40C air over Greenland will get drawn south. This forces a jet stream to accelerate to 180, possibly over 200mph, so all ingredients are in place for bombogenesis.

Here’s that powerhouse jet.

Here’s the 850 temp anomaly which shows the cold air over the UK to start next week but notice the tongue of warmer than normal air sweeping north into the deepening low with unusually cold air wrapping around the backside.

That’s an incredible surface pressure gradient between 1040 and 955ish millibars! Potential for hurricane-force west winds across the Atlantic.

The 850 temp chart shows nicely the warm air lifting north AHEAD of the cold front while yet another wave of polar maritime air follows.

There’s a real battle between air masses next week but are you seeing what’s going on here? The pattern is Atlantic but polar air in much more involved. Also notice the direction in which air weather is coming from next 3-5 days. NORTHWEST. Last year it was west or southwest and so nature’s winter side in fighting back after last year’s no show.

Nothing is written in stone when it comes to the longer term but I like what I’m seeing for January-February.

See video for more.

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