‘Gloom’ hanging over UK could end next week, forecasters say

The persistent gloom hanging over the UK could come to an end next week, with sunshine set to return, forecasters say.

While rain and snow are predicted to continue throughout the weekend, sunshine and milder weather could return next week, the Met Office has said.

Much of the UK has experienced “anticyclonic gloom” over the past week, causing dull skies which can “persist day after day”, with some areas not having seen the sun in over a week.

“It’s certainly a gloomy picture,” said Met Office Meteorologist Tom Morgan, speaking to the PA news agency.

“This month has been very dull, and we’ve not had very much sunshine.

“There are a few days to go before any records may be broken, but it’s certainly been a very cloudy week.

“Over the last eight days, we’ve seen five of our weather stations not record any sunshine whatsoever.

“Lyneham, in Wiltshire, has a record there going all the way back to 1957, and if you don’t see any sunshine there today and tomorrow then it would be a new equal for its longest peak in February with no sunshine.”

Mr Morgan said he did not expect any national records to be broken, but some areas could go 10 days without any sunshine, which is “near record-breaking”.

Rain and potentially snow are expected in some places, particularly around East Anglia and Lincolnshire over the weekend, and into Scotland towards the beginning of next week.

But temperatures could be much milder by the middle of the week – up to 13 or 14C – with sunshine in many places on Monday.

Mr 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 part 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 explained the gloom “dominating” the UK over the last two weeks has been caused by a “large anticyclone”, or high-pressure system, which has 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,” he added.

“That’s why we haven’t seen much in the way of sunshine in most of the UK recently.”