UK weather: Flooding concerns remain after record January rain

Around 17 January a blocking area of high pressure developed in Scandinavia and it’s still there to this day.

This has prevented areas of low pressure from moving beyond the UK, so they’ve become slow-moving, bringing very wet weather, with south-west winds to the south of the UK and south-easterly winds to the north of the UK. This wind pattern is responsible for the distribution of rain.

The Scandinavian blocking area of high pressure is finally going to budge this week, allowing our weather to change.

On Friday colder air will start to move in from the north, not only bringing some welcome sunshine but also some snow and ice.

There are yellow Met Office snow and ice warnings issued for much of Scotland and northern England from 16:00 GMT Thursday to 12:00 Friday.

Rain will turn to snow initially over high ground but it could fall at lower levels for a time.

Above 300 metres, a few locations may see as much as 10 cm settling.

The rain and snow is expected to clear south during the early hours of Friday with temperatures expected to fall quickly as skies clear, leading to ice on untreated surfaces.

The UK’s Health Security Agency has also issued yellow alerts for the colder weather across northern England and the Midlands from 06:00 GMT Friday to 08:00 Monday.

Next week our weather patterns will become more typical for the time of year with the Atlantic jet stream returning to the north-west of Scotland, rather than taking an unusual position near Morocco.

There will still be rain around as we’d expect in winter, but some of the wettest weather will return to west Scotland. The rain won’t be as extreme in east Scotland. In the southwest of England, it won’t rain every single day, there will be drier and sunnier days between our weather systems.

Heading towards the end of February, there are hints that an area of high pressure may visit our shores, bringing some more settled weather conditions. It’s a long way off, but it’s the least we deserve given just how wet and dull it’s been over recent weeks.