BBC monthly outlook
Summary
Wet and cooler than normal for most of the month
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Wednesday 6 November – Sunday 10 November
Unsettled with a brief dry, cold spell on Friday
The second half of the week and into this weekend will continue with the unsettled and cooler trend we have seen recently, as low pressure remains in charge. After a chilly start on Wednesday, bands of rain will spread into the UK from the west through the morning and afternoon, although northern Scotland and the southeast will see a dry day overall, with rain arriving overnight. On Thursday, a band of rain will stretch through Central Britain although there is a degree of uncertainty just how far north the rain will get to. Further north, rain will turn more showery and eventually ease across Scotland, while southern England escapes with a mostly dry day, bar a few showers towards the south-west. Rain will clear to the south-east on Friday leaving much of the UK with dry and sunny weather.
However, it will remain rather chilly. Overnight temperatures will plummet and most of the country is expected to see lows below freezing. Fog too will develop across some central and south-eastern portions of Britain. A low pressure system is then expected to cross the UK from northwest to southeast on Saturday and into Sunday. As the warm front moves in over the colder air Saturday morning, there is the potential for some early morning snow in the hills of Northwest Britain, before any snow turns back to rain by midday. A wet and cool weekend in store, but with overnight lows milder than those expected Friday night.
Monday 11 November – Sunday 17 November
Drier for some; heavy rain in the north midweek
High pressure is expected to remain across Scandinavia through the second full week of November, which will help to send Atlantic weather systems further south than normal. These systems will tend to cross the UK heading southeast, travelling into France and Spain before reaching the Mediterranean. This will tend to keep the UK cooler than normal throughout the week. Towards the middle of the week, a strong easterly wind over the North Sea and into the northern half of the UK will develop. At the same time, there is the potential for some heavy rain too.
Further south, rain will be lighter and more intermittent with some sunny spells mixed in. The heavy rain will tend to ease later in the week as we start to see a slight rise in pressure. It will still be wet in places, but not nearly as wet as the middle part of the week. Low pressure will remain near or over the UK through the weekend, so more unsettled weather is likely. However, temperatures will likely begin to trend towards the seasonal average.
Monday 18 November – Sunday 8 December
Staying wet but turning milder into December
The second half of November is where the weather become a little trickier to forecast, as the UK nestles between two weather patterns. The first, a stubborn and strong high pressure system over Scandinavia, which would bring cooler and drier weather. The second, a more active period of weather over the North Atlantic bringing some wet, windy but milder weather. It looks, at the moment, as though the Scandinavian high will tend to decline as we head into December but will likely hold on for the bulk of November. What this means for our weather is that initially, we are likely to see slow-moving rain-bearing systems with cooler air and lighter winds.
The pattern will then shift, with the UK seeing shorter-lived but heavier bursts of rain coupled with brief windy spells. These frontal systems will tend to draw in more tropical air from the southwest as they cross the Atlantic, so temperatures should gradually return nearer to average (or perhaps a touch above average heading into December). Confidence is a bit low on what the Scandinavian high pressure area is likely to do in December. We are reasonably confident that any prolonged and unusually cold weather looks unlikely, and snow in low-lying areas is expected to hold off until later in the winter.
Further ahead
We will take another look at December's weather and see what is likely as we approach the Christmas period.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/outlook