WEATHER OUTLOOK FOR SHETLAND

Friday, 18th May 2012 at 12:06

HEADLINES

TODAY: SUNNY SPELLS, SOME SHOWERS
TONIGHT: CLEAR SPELLS, LOCAL FROST
TOMORROW: MOSTLY DRY AND BRIGHT
DAYS 3-5: COOL, DRY AND BRIGHT, CHANCE OF FROST
DAYS 6-10: MAINLY DRY, BRIGHT. COOL NIGHTS

Like summer so far, this July was very changeable. Cool spells with periods of rain and showers alternated with milder settled weather. Until the 5th an anticyclone to the north maintained a ridge south across Shetland, resulting in generally fine, mild and dry conditions. As a depression moved over the UK, an unsettled south-easterly airflow followed

Over the UK as a whole, a “westerly” weather type prevailed for most of the month, bringing plenty of cloud and bands of rain or showers at times.

As is more often the case than not in Shetland, July saw the largely settled weather patterns of spring and early summer replaced by a more changeable and unsettled cyclonic-type, with depressions often following a track close to north-west Scotland.

While mean temperatures for the month were close to the 1971-2000 normal across Scotland, it was slightly colder than average in Shetland.

Across the Northern Isles, like the rest of the UK, the first week of April was unsettled. After this, as high pressure wandered slowly around the British Isles until mid-month, there was a period of relatively settled weather. This left the second half of the month again cyclonic and unsettled over northern Scotland.

During the first half of the month pressure was generally high over the British Isles. As its focus moved from west of – to a position over – the UK, an initial cold northerly airflow across the Northern Isles soon became a milder west or south-westerly, bringing an end to the snow cover that seemed to have lain across Shetland for much of the winter.

Atypically, the month was generally cyclonic and unsettled, with a high frequency of winds from between north and east in direction.

The first week of January in Shetland was cold and cyclonic, with low pressure over the North Sea or eastern UK bringing mainly north-easterly winds.

December was rather changeable. The first 10 days were mild with mainly south-westerly winds, as a number of Atlantic depressions tracked in a roughly north-easterly direction.