Britons are preparing for another cold weekend with temperatures dropping to -3C overnight and only reaching 3C during the day in many parts of England and Wales.
According to the Met Office, a high-pressure system located in the Southeast will bring cold air across southern regions, resulting in cloudy conditions.
Tomorrow, temperatures are forecasted to range from 3C (37F) to 5C (41F) for most of England and Wales, with slightly warmer conditions of 8C (47F) in the far Southwest and 9C (48F) in Scotland.
Temperatures tomorrow night are set to fall to -3C (27F) in northern England, North Wales and northern Scotland, while London and Manchester will drop to 0C (32F).
Sunday will bring daytime highs of 2C (36F) to 6C (43F) for most of England – but the South West will see 9C (48F) along with Scotland, while Wales will get to 7C (45F).
Then, an ongoing ‘very significant cold plunge’ hitting the US from the Arctic will impact the UK next week as the cold air coming south meets warmer subtropical air.
Forecasters said this dramatic temperature contrast would ‘fire up a very active jet stream’ which will bring ‘spells of wet and windy weather’ to Britain by midweek.
Met Office meteorologist Aidan McGivern said: ‘High pressure will be strongly influential across the UK this weekend but that doesn’t always mean sunny or warm.
A man looks over a canal in Little Venice in London yesterday afternoon in the chilly weather
The sunset mirrored in the waters of the River Medway near Rochester in Kent yesterday
‘Far from it, in fact with that high pressure sitting to the South East we’re actually going to draw up some chilly air across southern parts of the UK in particular and further low cloud at times as well.
‘Meanwhile for Scotland and Northern Ireland more of a breeze and a maritime influence so not quite as chilly but still temperatures of 9C, 10C, 11C and very windy in the far North West of Scotland.Â
‘Coastal gales along with a few spots of rain perhaps – with this area of rain extending out towards the Atlantic.’
He added that there would be some cloud breaks tomorrow afternoon in northern England, parts of Wales and northern Scotland – ‘especially where the wind comes in from the South and breaks up the cloud over high ground’.
But he told how low cloud would be a feature particularly in the South East – and with this ‘coming in from a chilly continent’ it could bring ‘a few spots of drizzle or in fact one or two snow grains’. Most areas however should be settled ‘albeit rather chilly’.
Looking ahead to tomorrow night, Mr McGivern said: ‘This weather front does become closer – it moves in very slowly from the West, but it comes up against high pressure which is slowly loosening its grip across the UK. However for all intents and purposes it’s a very similar day on Sunday compared with Saturday.Â
‘We start off with a touch of frost in places, perhaps as low as -3C if we get lengthy clear spells overnight – most likely through northern parts of England, North Wales, northern Scotland.
‘But where we keep the low cloud it’s going to start off quite chilly but frost free. A few fog patches around as well could last until the afternoon – otherwise it’s a very similar picture on Saturday.’
He said there would again be low cloud with some drizzle and snow grains, with temperatures of 2C (36F) or 3C (37F) in the East but milder in the West and the North.
The cloud will thicken in the North West later on with ‘outbreaks of rain slowly beginning to arrive from the Atlantic with a weakening weather front’.
Mr McGivern then warned of a change in the weather next week, saying that in North America there was a ‘very significant cold plunge, air coming all the way from the Arctic into much of Canada and the United States bringing unusually cold weather.’
He said this would impact the UK’s weather next week ‘because as that cold air comes south it collides with warmer subtropical air’.
Mr McGivern continued: ‘That temperature contrast fires up a very active jet stream which will eventually make its way across the Atlantic and send the UK a very significant change in weather from the middle of next week. So much more unsettled with Atlantic lows arriving, bringing spells of wet and windy weather.’
It comes after a week of topsy-turvy temperatures that saw different records broken at either end of the scale in just three days.
On Tuesday, Cassley in the Scottish Highlands reached 15.7C (60.3F), which was a new date record for the highest temperature on January 14 since records began.
That also made Tuesday the UK’s warmest day of 2024 so far – beating the previous high of 14.2C (57.6F) set at Merryfield in Somerset on Sunday, January 5.
But it came after Altnaharra in the Highlands plunged to -18.9C (-2F) on Saturday, January 11 – which was the coldest January overnight temperature since 2010.
Much of the UK endured sub-freezing temperatures last weekend, dropping to -11.2C (11.8F) at Shap in Cumbria while Bala in Wales recording -6.7C (19.9F).
The UK Health Security Agency had a cold weather health alert in place for all of England during what became a prolonged chilly spell at the start of the year.
But the sudden change in conditions this week resulted in a 34.6C (62.3F) swing in temperatures in just three days in northern Scotland, between Saturday and Tuesday.
The average low in northern Scotland for this time of year is -0.3C (31.5F), while for England, overnight lows are normally about 1.5C (34.7F).
