Fairly cold this weekend and a little colder next week.

Thanks to Debbie for the photograph.

It’s quite an unusual set-up at the moment, especially for early winter where we are often under westerly regimes with spells of wind and rain, and often pretty mild.

This year, we start winter with a strong high pressure block over Scandinavia, and a fairly cold easterly flow – though the easterly is being moderated a tad by a much warmer than normal North Sea.

Tonight looks rather cloudy, the odd shower in the chilly easterly breeze possible. A few clear spells towards dawn and down to around 2’C.

Saturday will be often cloudy, though some sunny spells at times. The odd shower possible in the breeze. Fairly cold in the easterly breeze, reaching close to 7’C. Mostly cloudy overnight, the odd shower possible, a few clear spells at times, down to around 2’C.

Sunday looks mostly cloudy. A few light/moderate showers around, the odd sunny spell possible. A bit colder, 5’C in a fairly cold easterly wind. Cloudy overnight, the odd light shower again, down to around 3’C.

Monday again looks mostly cloudy, again the odd light shower around, a few sunny spells. 6’C, maybe 7’C in the easterly breeze. Mostly cloudy overnight though a few clear spells possible towards dawn, down to around 3’C.

By Tuesday we see high pressure now more centred over Greenland, and allowing a northerly flow, of sorts, to develop.

A bit more in the way of sunny spells, but plenty of cloud likely around to. Still fairly cold, 6’C. More likely overnight we see some clear spells, some cloud and temperatures on the verge of a frost, down to 1’C – however there is a small chance that a little rain may move north from France.

By Wednesday we are likely in a northerly flow, so colder but sunnier. Good sunny spells most likely, a little cloud, and temperatures around 4’C, maybe 5’C – and feeling cold in the northerly breeze. A frost likely overnight, down to around -2’C, perhaps lower. A small chance of fog.

Thursday is probably about as far as I can go with any reasonable confidence. Likely still in the northerly flow, with sunny spells and temperatures around 4’C – a small chance of a wintry shower.

Friday and into next weekend could remain cold, I’d still say that it is the slight favourite.

However it does look like a rather nasty low pressure system over the Azores could, if it develops to its potential, be able to change our weather pattern back to a mild, wet and windy pattern.

There is also a less likely scenario than the two above, that this (or a different low pressure system) struggle to get into the UK due to the more entrenched cold, and give a spell of heavy snow somewhere either in the UK or France, with heavy snow on the northern boundary and heavy rain on the southern boundary. It’s a possibility, but not really one to think too much about yet.

If the mild and wet weather does win out next weekend, I still think it would be easy to go back to a cold pattern after. There remains plenty of background signals in favour of cold weather for Europe for December.

It is very interesting model watching right now.

Enjoy your weekend – I should hopefully get time to do the winter forecast at some point.