23 January 2024 , 16:01
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The Met Office has issued a Storm Jocelyn warning as it offers its verdict on weeks of mild weather beyond the latest storm.
Storm Jocelyn marks the tenth storm of what is increasingly looking likely to be a record breaking worst storm year ever. Ever since Christmas, the country has seen a number of storms, and freezing weather.
But since then, temperatures have taken an unexpected turn towards an unseasonably mild level. Today, the Met Office said the mercury could be pushing 14C - barely two weeks after it hit -15C.
The Met Office explained why this was to the Mirror, as it issued a warning around Storm Jocelyn, which is due to hit this evening, overnight into Wednesday morning. Oli Claydon, Met Office spokesperson, said: "Today was notably mild temperatures for parts of England and Wales especially with highs of maybe 14C which is unseasonably mild for this time of year.
"Temperatures do sort of hang around the low teens or double figures this week and really that is all down to the source of the air. We’ve got milder Atlantic air, the source region of our weather coming from the west. It's just milder, in stark contrast to the northern and easterly flows just a few weeks ago that brought very low temperatures and wintry hazards along with it."
Gales, snow and rain to batter country today with 80mph wind gusts
He also explained how the UK suffered "quite marked" swings in temperature as air coming into the country varied from west, to the east or north, which tend to be colder. But looking ahead, he also said that, whilst some high pressure towards the end of this week cold see frosty mornings. The mild temperatures could hang around until mid-February.
Recently the country saw winds of 107mph (PA)He added: "Looking ahead towards mid-February there are signals of a possibility of the flow of direction of our weather switching to a more northerly or easterly which increases the chances of colder spells."
Alongside that, he also echoed a Met Office warning of Storm Jocelyn possibly having worse impacts than Storm Isha, despite not being as powerful. He continued: "The two strands of this, the strong wind storms are coming quite close to each other. We’ve got one side of which is trees that may have taken a battering from Storm Isha, that may have been weakened, that then could collapse and fall down during Storm Jocelyn because they haven’t had a chance to be secured or fixed or inspected.
"Then also the recovery aspect, there’s still a number of properties across the UK without power, because of the impact of Storm Isha and the various companies and authorities that are resting and responding to those issues, trying to get people back as soon as possible but obviously having another storm doesn’t help the recovery effort as they try to help people get back online."