Met Office says snowfall may continue briefly in parts of UK before milder conditions well above February average. The UK will have warmer weather this week and sunshine in a number of areas on Monday, forecasters have said. After snow and torrential rain in parts of the country over the weekend, rising temperatures will bring a welcome respite. Temperatures could reach 13C (55F) or 14C by the middle of the week, well above the February average of 6C in Scotland and 9C in southern England, the Met Office said.
The forecast comes after a week of “anticyclonic gloom” across much of the UK brought dull skies in addition to below-average temperatures over the past fortnight. However, the Met Office said the milder weather was not likely to approach the 21.2C record for February that was set in 2019 in Kew Gardens. Some rain is likely during the week in western areas of the UK, while eastern areas are forecast to be drier.
The Met Office meteorologist Tom Morgan said he did not expect any national records to be broken but current periods without sunshine could last 10 days in some areas, which would be “near record-breaking”. Morgan said: “We’ve basically got this battleground taking place over this weekend between cold air across Scandinavia and central Europe, which is affecting eastern parts of the UK, but towards the west is a little bit milder.
“The Atlantic is trying to shift that cold air out of the way, pushing from west to east across the UK, but it’s a very slow process and it will take until the middle of the coming week for conditions to turn much milder nationwide.”. He said the gloom “dominating” the UK over the past two weeks had been caused by a “large anticyclone”, or high-pressure system, which had been sitting over Scandinavia, bringing cold wind from the east.
“Those cold conditions have picked up a lot of moisture across the Baltic and North seas, and those moist conditions have led to a lot of clouds. That’s why we haven’t seen much in the way of sunshine in most of the UK recently.”. Snow fell in parts of East Anglia on Saturday, with 2cm in Norfolk and 1cm in Suffolk. According to the Met Office, parts of the UK may continue to have snowfall throughout Sunday evening and into Monday.
