Chester-le-Street (Durham) weather

Headline:

Mostly dry and cloudy Monday, but becoming increasingly cold.

Today:

Generally dry but dull, with a good deal of cloud. Some brighter spells perhaps developing in the west. The odd shower possible along the coast in the late morning and afternoon. Mostly light winds away from the coast. Maximum temperature 6 °C.

Tonight:

The cloud breaking up in the evening, allowing temperatures to quickly drop and widespread frost to develop. Remaining dry with some hill fog possible. Minimum temperature -3 °C.

Tuesday:

Any hill fog quickly clearing to leave a dry day with light winds and good spells of sunshine. Cold overnight with clear skies developing and a widespread frost again. Maximum temperature 5 °C.

Outlook for Wednesday to Friday:

Dry with variable cloud for Wednesday. Showers overnight into Thursday which may be wintry. Mostly dry Thursday before further wintry showers possible on Friday afternoon. Turning very cold.

Cold northerly winds, initially across Scotland are now expected to become dominant across the whole UK in the first week of January. These will bring wintry showers (often of snow) to many coastlines (and areas just inland of these) that are exposed to onshore winds. Subtle day-to-day changes in wind direction from northeast to northwest will change the places most exposed to the showers, but many inland locations across central and southern areas will remain mostly dry but cold. There are likely to be some more coherent bands of rain, sleet and snow working south, and these may bring a risk of more prolonged wintry precipitation affecting some inland areas. Towards the second half of this period, slightly milder conditions will attempt to move in from the west.

Whilst confidence in details is low, by the start of this period the transition back to westerly winds bringing Atlantic weather systems into the UK is expected to be complete, with temperatures most likely recovering to around average. There is perhaps a weak signal for slowly evolving weather patterns to be more favoured than normal, such patterns increase the chances of frost and fog above normal by night.