Enjoy the briefest respite before the storms to come
STRANGE how sometimes the weather matches the national mood. Turbulent times politically are coming against a backdrop of gale force winds, rain fronts sweeping in from the Atlantic and choppy seas around our coasts. But thankfully there has been some respite between wave after wave of bad news on the weather front.
Today should be one of those spells of relative calm, especially if you are in the southern half of the country. The great swathe of rain and wind that made last night testing will head out into the North Sea, sucking in behind it on a southwesterly breeze a mild front that will leave most parts from the Midlands southwards bright, blustery, and with the occasional shower. Expect pleasant temperatures for the time of year at 57F (14C) in Plymouth and London and 55F (13C) in Norwich and Cardiff.
Scotland, though, will be put through the mill by a colder northerly wind and plenty of rain, leaving Edinburgh at 46F (8C) and Aberdeen at 44F (7C), with some mountain areas getting a covering of snow.
The turbulence will continue into next week. A queue of Atlantic low pressure systems will move swiftly over the UK, each bringing wind and rain. There will be bright spells, but nothing long enough to depend on. And as next weekend approaches, there are signs of chillier conditions for the whole country.
If all this has you dreaming not so much of a white Christmas as a return to our heatwave summer, the Met Office in its UK Climate Projections 2018 predicts that such temperatures may be the norm by 2070, with a rise in the seasonal average of 9.7F (5.4C) in the bleakest scenario.