Cold weather in Aylesbury Vale will pass in a few days, says expert

For the second week of January, this past week started rather mild, wet, and windy not just for Bucks but much of southern England. The cause of this? A Returning Polar Maritime air mass.

Originating near Greenland, the air mass traveled southwards across the Atlantic Ocean before turning and travelling further north towards the UK. Within this air mass, numerous low pressure systems have been moving in from the west across the UK, bringing a couple of rain bands per system with mild air entrenched between the two. Multiple low pressure systems resulted in much of southern England encapsulated inside of this mild air during the day, with temperatures in double figures and around 3C above the average for this time of year.

In addition to the wet and mild weather, the past week has been quite breezy, with winds comfortably between 20-30mph most of the time. As some bands of rain approached, wind speeds increased with gusts reaching 30-40mph and occasionally exceeding 40mph.

However, a change in air mass took place at the end of the weekend and into the start of this week. A northerly air mass that originated in the Arctic protruded southward across the UK, bringing the cold temperatures we have been seeing lately. These are likely to continue for the next couple of days, along with largely dry and sunny conditions.

Across England the Met Office has issued a yellow weather warning as snow and ice could be set to hit large swathes of the country.

Last week, the Met Office also issued over 50 flood warnings across the UK with the River Thame in Aylesbury and River Ouse in Buckingham among the areas said to be at risk.

But do not worry, the cold should not be sticking around for much longer with temperatures expected to return to the seasonal average, with the potential for unsettled conditions on the horizon with a few spells of rain possible through the weekend. Although with high pressure situated to the southeast of the UK there is potential for drier conditions to continue through the weekend.