Ever wondered why our forecasts for 5 days and beyond are written on the scale of the UK as a whole? When looking at forecasts beyond five days into the future the chaotic nature of the atmosphere starts to come into play - small events currently over the Atlantic can have potentially significant impacts on our weather in the UK in several days' time. Therefore whilst we can still forecast the general feel of the weather to a relatively high level of accuracy using our ensemble models, it becomes harder to offer local detail to as high a level of accuracy as our shorter range forecasts. For this reason our text forecasts for 5 days and beyond are written on the scale of the UK as a whole.
Long range forecast
Long range forecast
Tuesday 30 Apr - Thursday 9 May
The period is likely to start with areas of organised rain and/or showers in the west, and largely dry conditions in the east although a scattering of showers developing by day. As the week progresses thes more organised areas of rain and showers are likely to slide southeast to affect southern parts of the UK, with drier weather in northern, especially northwestern UK Winds will gradually turn from southerly to easterly, with a chance of rain or even thundery showers for a time in the east and southeast. Temperatures likely to trend upwards, with the chance of a warm to very warm spell in some southern and eastern parts, before conditions probably turn gradually drier, cooler and more settled from the west towards the end of the period.
Friday 10 May - Friday 24 May
In this period, the chances of unsettled weather are slightly less than usual in the north and about the same as usual further south. Therefore, some spells of wetter weather are likely for all, but perhaps especially southern areas with the driest conditions probably further north. Temperatures probably near average though with some cooler interludes possible. Also worth noting that average temperatures themselves rise by around 1C per week at this time of year.
Why isn't there more detail in the long range forecast?
Our long range forecast (which is updated on a daily basis) provides an indication of how the weather might change, or be different from normal, (i.e. warmer, colder, wetter, drier) across the whole UK. Met Office meteorologists consider output from a range of weather models when writing these forecasts. These models include those from the Met Office as well as models from other global forecasting centres such as the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts ( ECMWF).