A calm end to the year – but 2019 could turn wild
WHILE New Yorkers have been treated to eerie, neon-blue skies, on this side of the Atlantic we have been relaxing under something a whole lot greyer, often misty, but bearing gifts of warmth (for the time of year).
And that pattern is going to continue as we welcome in 2019.
Over in the Big Apple on Thursday, the sky turned fluorescent and had social media buzzing with predictions that it was caused by aliens or even the Rapture, the end-time prophecy anticipated by fundamentalist Christians. Instead it turned out to be an explosion and fire at a power plant.
No such dramas today for us. The high pressure rooted over northern France, which has been responsible for the dull, settled, mild and mostly dry weather throughout the Christmas break, is to stay on for a while.
A weak weather system may bring rain to the north of Scotland this morning, but after that it will join the rest of the country under grey skies, with the odd interlude of blue, especially in the more favoured East. Temperatures will be well above the seasonal averages at 55F (13C) in London, 54F (12C) in Norwich, Cardiff, Newcastle and Aberdeen, and 52F (11C) mostly everywhere else.
New Year’s Eve brings light winds, and the same clouds and – where the night sky has been clear – early mists and fog will remain with us for the first 24 hours of the new year.
But don’t take it as a good omen. Our weather hasn’t made a new year resolution to calm down (dear). The jet stream, the air currents in the high atmosphere that dictate whether we get rain or sun, is likely to start flexing its muscles before the week is out and could nudge that high pressure away in favour of something a bit wilder. Peter Stanford