We all know it’s been a wet past 8 weeks but I thought this was an interesting stat we’re waking up to this morning.

Aboyne, Aberdeenshire has comfortably broke their all-time record for January rainfall. Amazing is the fact we’re only 8 days into the month.

Scene from Inverurie, Aberdeenshire last night.

Many flood warnings remain over northeast Scotland.

As for today, there’s further wet weather with hill snow for northern England/southern Scotland as well as NE Scotland.

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Atlantic low pressure remains the dominant feature this weekend over the UK and indeed western mainland EuropeTh. With fairly low thicknesses, we’re in modestly cold air.

Note the large gyre with twin lows encompassing a large swathe of the North Atlantic.

Low pressure remains dominant through early next week but as heights rise over the Atlantic and the last low exits into Denmark, the arctic door opens mid week on. I believe precipitation blowing in on an increasingly cold NE flow should turn more to snow even at low levels as the week progresses.

Days shall turn colder and where skies are clear overnight, temps will fall pretty far, especially if there’s snow on the ground.

Next week presents the transition with the shut down of the westerlies. It’s not until day 6-10 that the setup is just right.

ECMWF and GFS forecast snow cover this day next week.

Heights will continue building over the North Atlantic and Greenland next week but peak day 6-10 as seen by the CFSv2 weeklies.

Day 1-5

6-10

Notice in the 30 day 500mb height animation how heights suddenly build into the arctic from Jan 1-5 in response to Storm Frank.

Next week should see the crucial building of positive heights (atmospheric boulder) over the NORTH ATLANTIC as Canadian and Greenland ridges merge and it’s this that shuts down the westerly flow into the UK.

Remember the big shift occurs within the high latitudes first then then there’s response underneath. This process usually takes up to a week.

See today’s video for the discussion.

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