There’s been some media speculation that a storm which brought snow and blizzard conditions to the United States, from Virginia to Maine, is now heading towards the UK. Whilst this makes great headlines, it is not quite the case.

The storm, named “Stella” by some in the US, brought around 16 inches of snow to parts of Pennsylvania and around 7 or 8 inches to New York state, is moving away northeast, changing its characteristics as it does so, as commonly happens as storms cross the Atlantic. Ultimately some remnants of it are heading well to the north of the UK towards Iceland, drawing mild and unsettled conditions from across the Atlantic to our shores for the end of the week and the weekend.

Here in the UK we are in for a blustery and wet Friday and weekend however this is a spell of fairly typical spring weather with strong to gale force winds, rain and  spells of blustery sunshine for many. We could even see some snow over high ground in Scotland.

A strong jet stream is helping drive this unsettled weather our way.  This is due in part to a big temperature contrast between areas of warm air and cold air in the United States at the moment. Alex Deakin explains all this in more detail.

Forecast

Tomorrow starts cloudy for many with outbreaks of rain and drizzle gradually moving south-east followed by sunshine and showers in to the north.

Then as we head into Friday and the weekend it turns unsettled with bands of rain pushing in from the west. Hill snow and patchy ice are likely at times across Scotland and it will turn windy for all.

As always keep up to date with the weather in your area using our forecast pages, Twitter or Facebook, as well as using our new mobile app which is available for iPhone from the App store and for Android from the Google Play store. Search for “Met Office” in store.