Well it looks as though next week sees another spell of sustained fine, dry and settled weather throughout Ireland and the UK but there’s a temporary break on the way for this weekend. Before we get there, it’s warming up very nicely today. Highs maxed out at 23C over eastern Scotland yesterday and today we may get up to 25C. As for more southern areas where it’s been cool and breezy, those winds relaxing so temps will climb into the low, possibly mid 20s today.

Notice how the 850 level has warmed in the last 36 hrs.

All the while a system is gathering over the Bay of Biscay and progressing northward. As well as initially lifting temperatures, it’s also lifting humidity and is set to spark a rather stormy end to Friday across much of Southern/central England/Wales. Ahead of the main front, temps under sunny skies should warm to 26, maybe 27C which would make for the warmest day of 2015.

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Showers and storms become more widespread through Friday PM and by evening, we should see a solid band of heavy, torrential, thundery rain push north. While this is going on, winds begin turning more from a northeast direction over Scotland and this significantly cools things down here. In fact rather than today’s 25, tomorrow 22/23 we’re likely to only see 10-14C Saturday with a stiff wind blowing straight off the cold Norwegian Sea.

That system never brings it’s torrential/thundery rain band into Scotland (as per latest models) and so we remain cool, fresh and showery up here but to the south it’s still warm and somewhat humid as the low slides east into the North Sea. During Sunday into Monday winds turn northerly and so the South of the UK is introduced to the cooler, fresher air. Highs even in London and the Southeast will be confined to between 16-18C.

Late weekend into early next week high pressure builds back into the UK from the NORTHWEST and off the cold North Atlantic, therefore we settle back down but start off next week where we started this week with chilly highs, potentially cold, frosty nights (away from urban areas) but as the high strengthens OVER the UK, so surface warming should increase MID to LATE NEXT WEEK, possibly returning to similar temperature values that we have now!

Check out the 850 temps at 12z this Sunday…

and by 12z Wednesday… just like this week once the air mass is over the UK and not cold North Atlantic.

Here’s the latest ECMWF surface through next weekend. Almost identical pattern repeating…

What’s interesting with all this is that the ridge appears to keep going back westward over the Atlantic, bringing back in our cooler NW flow. Over the past say 6 weeks or so, the mean ridge has been centred over the Atlantic but as the seasonal shift continues, we’re seeing and back and forth dance between Atlantic and UK starting to show. I’m curious to see how this pattern will continue to evolve as we head for late June into early summer and of course the heart of the summer season.

The EPS control holds the core of the high just off the UK west coast through the next 15 days and the CFSv2 holds it WNW through the next 4 weeks. That suggests relative dry but cool.

See video for today’s discussion.

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