While it’s all about the warming in the eastern Pacific, it’s quite the opposite to our west over the North Atlantic. With a mean upper flow pattern blowing west-east off a colder-than-normal North Atlantic means unusually cool winds for mid May across Ireland, UK and into the western mainland of Europe.

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The initial 5-day mean off the GFS operational shows a due west wind straight off the 1-2C colder than normal N Atlantic which is supressing air temps over land by a good 2-4C below normal.

In the day 5-10, 10-15 the model shows building heights to the west/northwest with a trough dropping over the UK/Ireland and West Europe.

This trend towards Icelandic high pressure will support a cooling trend through May’s second half.

When we’ve clear skies and light winds under high pressure, this cold water is helping cool the atmosphere, making for slightly colder nights than what’s typical.

Late week & weekend…

As for the current weather pattern, well it’s fine and dry today thanks to ridging but over the next few days both sides of the UK get in on some wet weather, starting off with the South during Thursday. This more SSW tracking system will be a decent rain maker for England and Wales where up to an inch of rain is possible for some.

Then the focus of wet and windy turns to the Northern UK during the second half of Friday into Saturday.

Following the passage of the main front Saturday, a stiff west wind along with hefty, blustery showers will follow for Northern Ireland/Scotland, N England. As mentioned above, that breeze will have more resemblance to late mid March rather than mid May thanks the cold Atlantic.

Another system moves in Monday.

Turning unseasonably chilly mid to late next week…

As we head towards mid and late next week, our flow turns more northwesterly and colder as high pressure builds over the North Atlantic towards Greenland. This could, could spell more wintery weather to the Scottish Mountains and the GFS is seeing it!

These are COLD 850s for late May.

Models sees snow over the Cairngorms!

See today’s video for the discussion.

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