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Saturday begins fine across England and Wales but in the north west of the UK there is some patchy rain. Through the day the rain perks up in western Scotland. The damp conditions may push eastwards into central Scotland and Northern Ireland at times too. The rest of the UK has a dry day with the best of the sunshine in southern and central counties.

Temperatures range from 12C (54F) in the north west to 17C (63F) in the brighter areas See the rain and lightning radar for the latest view.

Meteo France Arpege, forecast rain, 16:00 BST Sat 20th October

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Tonight light rain moves down into northern England and northern Wales. More persistent spells of rain develop in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Southern and central regions have a dry night and it won't be as chilly as recently.

Tomorrow the rain spreads southeastwards into northern and central areas but it becomes lighter and more intermittent. To the north it turns colder and showery. In southern counties it stays dry and bright.

DWD ICON, forecast rain, 16:00 BST Sun 21st October

Arctic plunge late next week?

Early on Monday the remnants of the rain clear southwards and cooler air follows from the northwest. Through the middle part of the week high pressure is expected to be centred close to, or just to the west of the UK. That leads to settled weather but there will be a risk of patchy nighttime fog and frost.

During the second half of the week the high pressure area may become centred farther west in the Atlantic. That would open the gates and lead to cold Arctic plunging southwards towards the UK. The details are uncertain but there is the possibility of it turning much colder with the risk of snow showers in the north by Friday. During the weekend the chill could extend down to the south.

GFS, forecast pressure and 850hPa temperatures, 16:00 BST Sat 27th October

TWO heads for the cloud

During the next couple of weeks we'll be working hard to migrate our website and services to cloud based servers. Very appropriately for a weather based business you may say! The transition means big changes behind the scenes and they could could lead to some service disruption and snagging problems. Once the move is complete we'll have a much flexible platform that makes it easier to expand and provide new services in the future.

Register for the TWO community

If you would like to join the TWO community please see how to register for the forum. People with all levels of meteorological knowledge are very welcome to apply. However if you're a meteorology (or related subject) student or recent graduate there may be an opportunity for you to earn some money next summer.

Forecast tools

Check the latest satellite images, computer model charts and rain radar:

1981 - 2010 daily temperature charts

Temperature anomalies

DWD ICON forecast charts

EUMETSAT high resolution satellite images

Rain and precipitation type radar

Meteo France Arpege forecast charts

Global Forecast System (GFS) forecast charts

16 day GEFS ensembles at a glance

Temperatures remain above average for the next 10 days. During the last week of October cooler and possibly more changeable conditions are favoured.View latest GEFS.