Volatile weather this weekend

The Daily Sail meteorologist Libby Greenhalgh looks at the forecast

General Situation

Today (Friday) will see the turn of the wind with milder but wetter southwesterly prevailing UK winds setting in for the weekend. Three large scale low pressure systems will cause the change as two of the systems push across from the mid-Atlantic and towards the UK tonight and tomorrow. Saturday and Sunday will be dominated by the effects of this system.

Saturday will bring the strongest breeze across the weekend. The wind strength will be between 8-12 knots from the south southwest strengthening in early afternoon (2pm) to between 15-18 knots and backing slightly to a southerly direction. By late evening the low pressure centre will have pushed into Ireland causing the wind to veer to the west and decrease to around 4-8 knots. Overnight the low pressure will turn and steer westwards across the British Isles providing a light wind in the morning of around 5-8 knots from the west.

Sunday will continue with a light westerly wind of 8knots in the morning as the low centre pushes across England to be just off Dover by midday. In the afternoon the wind will decrease as the low pushes away to the west. The winds will back from the west to the southwest as with the wind dropping to below 6 knots as a second low centre approaches the UK in the evening.

The satellite images indicate the end of the relatively clear skies of the last couple of days as low thick cloud associated with the occluded front of the low pressure systems look set to push across the country bringing some heavy rain throughout the weekend.