A blast of tropical air back to frost ... much like politics
JUST as the pendulum swings in our politics, Left to Right, so too does our weather. It is, of course, the case as we work our way through the seasons, but within weeks and even days that same effect can be seen at play. And that is very much the picture this week as a series of warm and cold fronts take turns over the UK, blown in on westerly breezes from the Atlantic.
When we are under a warm front, the temperatures will be unseasonably mild – as much as 63F (17C) along the sheltered east coast in the early part of the week. There is even a drop of tropical air from the Caribbean mixed in there, potentially making Hull hotter than Abu Dhabi, forecasters predict. But behind that warm wave will come the equal and opposite in the shape of colder, wetter conditions, with maybe even a touch of frost.
Today, expect anything up to a spring-like 55F (13C) in most parts of the country, with the possible exception of north-west Scotland, where it could be wetter and windier.
So far it has been a pretty dry winter over the UK. The rest of February is likely to bring no major change and so we are on course for one of the top 10 driest winters on record – top five in Northern Ireland, all the more remarkable since last year there saw the wettest. There goes that pendulum again.
Looking further afield, after five years of drought in California, the heavens finally opened this week with up to 10 inches of rain in a single day, putting the huge Oroville Dam under such pressure that 188,000 nearby residents had to be evacuated in case it broke. Needless to say, in the home of Hollywood, these extraordinary downpours have been labelled “epic”.