Monthly Outlook

A drier period should develop through the weekend and early next week as high pressure builds across the UK, but the second half of the week should become cooler and more changeable.

High pressure could then rebuild to make conditions drier and warmer for a while, but cooler and wetter weather might return in May.

Becoming more settled by the weekend

Wednesday will be windy with outbreaks of rain or showers, some heavy with a risk of localised thunderstorms. There will be some brightness in between, especially in eastern regions where it will become quite warm.

Thursday will have a mixture of sunny spells and scattered showers, with winds easing. It will be a cooler day except in the south and east. On Friday another band of frontal rain will sweep across from the west but weaken before it reaches the south-east, where there will be some warm sunny spells. Northern and western regions will be wettest and windiest but could brighten up later.

High pressure will start to build from the south-west on Saturday, with some cooler west to north-westerly breezes and outbreaks of showery rain in northern and western regions but drier conditions to the east and south. However, there will chances of fog patches early in the day and overnight. High pressure could become established across the UK on Sunday, leading to mostly dry conditions with variable cloud after patchy morning fog.

Dry at first then changeable and cooler

High pressure will most probably linger near or east of the UK early next week, ensuring mostly dry weather with just a few spots of drizzle possible here and there where cloud thickens. However, most places will see occasional sunshine following early fog patches, and it should be warmer than average with mostly rather light winds.

Around midweek high pressure may start to reposition, building more at higher latitudes, especially towards Iceland. This might allow a low pressure system to bring rain across some southern regions while the north remans drier. The second half of the week could feature more of a north-westerly flow, blowing in somewhat cooler air with a couple of bands of rain or some showers moving south-eastwards. This could mean some wintry showers over the Highlands.

The position of high pressure is rather uncertain, though, and if it stays more over the UK then a continuation of drier conditions would ensue, with the south having wetter chances than the north. This has about a 30% probability.

Fairly dry then potentially wetter again later

The position of high pressure remains uncertain during the end of April and into early May, but it is likely to settle at higher latitudes, from Greenland and Iceland and north of the UK towards Scandinavia.

Precipitation amounts should average out near or a little below normal, but as time goes by there will be increasing chances of wetter weather developing, more especially across the southern half of the UK.

Temperatures should mostly stay above normal for about another week but then potentially decline, with more seasonable values possible by the end of the period, and increasing risks of some stronger winds at times. There is a chance that high pressure could extend more towards the UK, with around a 40% chance of conditions staying drier.

In Friday's update there may be a clearer idea of where high pressure will settle, and we will be able to take a look further ahead through mid-May.