Bank Holiday Weekend Weather Outlook

Bank Holiday Weekend Weather 27-29th May '06 in association with ACME® Sunshades International Inc.

Fact of the Week! On Sunday August 6, 2000 a shower of dead slugs fell on Todmorden.

Our regular Friday round-up of what's in store for the weekend. Just check the links for the relevant weather forecasts and if you want to know how things look in a particular area right now, check out the OM web cams page for a selection of hill cams. And whatever you do, have a good one.

Metcheck for good overviews of localised areas based on a number of meteorological models. Loads of quirky options for stuff like rain forecasts plus offbeat, leftfield weather generalisations. Get stuck in and have a browse, there's a lot on this site. Metcheck has a new Google Earth fusion thing, unfortunately it's only available to premium members, but it sounds good anyway. We can't get onto Metcheck right now, but check out the site's 7-Day UK Forecast page. You can check out individual areas or dig a bit deeper for the Mountain Forecast page or the Climbing Forecast page. The Seven-Day Charts give a handy overview too.

Mountain Weather Information Service has great downloadable mountain-specific forecasts for NW, W and SE Highlands, Cairngorms, Southern Uplands, Peak District and Lakes in PDF format. Plus a Snowdonia forecast. The Peak and Snowdonia forecasts are now restricted to weekend forecasts and go out on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Worth wading through the increasingly cluttered lay-out. Buffeting winds with rain and showers on both Saturday and Sunday, not exactly warm either, you can expect temperatures between 2 and 5 centigrade on Scottish mountain tops and only slightly warmer south of the border. Northerly winds bringing showers early next week as well, possibly snow high on Scottish hills. Check individual forecasts for specific details. Arguably the best mountain-specific forecast out there by a way.

BBC Weather Site uses Met Office data, but more user friendly. Just been revamped for the summer, weird stuff but easy access to a lot more information including rain forecasts, cloud, wind, temperature, visibility etc. Nice. Localised forecasts accessible from the same page. Saturday 'The rain will clear southern counties of England and Wales, leaving a brighter afternoon. The northern half of the UK will have bright or sunny spells and showers, some of which will be heavy. Generally breezy.' Sunday 'Rain in the south should clear into the English Channel, then southern counties will join the rest of the UK in a bright day with some sunny spells and a few showers. Light to moderate winds. It will feel pleasant in the sunshine.' BBC specific areas: Fort William / Kendal / Betws-y-Coed / Aviemore / Skipton / Glossop (Peak) / Brecon / Milton Keynes.

Met Office For localised five-day forecasts use this page. See weather for the next week. Saturday 'Rain clearing England and Wales, with showers further north.' Sunday Sunny spells, still blowy.. Welsh Mountain Forecasts Useful online forecasts covering the National Park areas of Snowdonia - and the Brecon Beacons.

Scottish Avalanche Information Service - The last daily avalanche forecast for the season has been and gone. In the winter there are avalanche and climbing condition reports for five major Scottish climbing areas - Lochaber, northern and southern Cairngorms, Glencoe and Creag Meagaidh. But we don't want to think about that for a while yet ...

OUTDOORSmagic web cam page Links to all the UK mountain web cams we're aware of. If there's one that we've missed, please drop us a line and we'll add it to the page. Good for getting a general idea of what the snow situation's like, if the sun is shining, whether there's anywhere to park in Coniston etc. Check the image you're viewing is up to date as they often seem to go down. We'll overhaul this page shortly as some of the links aren't functioning or the cameras have disappeared - nicked? You have to hope not ;-)

Well, we've seen worse...
Winds may give buffeting high up plus rain and showers likely.

Verdict It may be almost June, but hey, it's a bank holiday weekend, so there's plenty of showers, wind and coolness high up on the menu. Kit wise, treat it like an early spring day and you shouldn't go far wrong - remember it could be just a degree or so off freezing on some Scottish summits :-)

Have a good one.