Weather and climate change

Headline:

Very strong winds, snow and rain moving east.

This Evening and Tonight:

Storm Goretti will continue to move eastwards across England and Wales. Very strong and damaging wind gusts will move along the south coast. Rain turning to snow, heavy for central parts of England and Wales. Wintry showers and ice elsewhere.

Friday:

Storm Goretti will slowly edge away, but rain and some snow continuing across the east of England. Sunny spells and a scattering of wintry showers elsewhere. Windy and feeling cold.

Outlook for Saturday to Monday:

Fine on Saturday after a cold and icy start. Further wet and windy weather moving east through Sunday, with some hill snow in the north. Milder for all by Monday.

Updated: 16:00 (UTC) on Thu 8 Jan 2026

There is now much higher confidence for milder air to overspread the UK by the start of this period with the last of the cold air of the past couple of weeks expected to clear from the extreme northeast during the course of Monday. So this period likely to see brisk southwesterly winds bringing a very different feel to the weather than of late. There will be some rain or showers at times, but also a good deal of dry weather and although often cloudy, some brighter interludes are expected, especially to the lee of high ground. The milder conditions will see temperatures widely above average, and will lead to a rapid thaw of any remaining lying snow across northern parts of Scotland.

Updated: 14:00 (UTC) on Thu 8 Jan 2026

The outlook through the latter part of January and into the start of February is typically uncertain. A broadly southwesterly regime is marginally favoured bringing changeable conditions and spells of wet, windy and mild weather are likely, potentially with some very strong winds at times. However there is a chance that drier and colder conditions could extend into the UK from the east or northeast, along with a risk of some snow.

Updated: 15:00 (UTC) on Thu 8 Jan 2026