North Sea weather: Low pressure dominant at first, improvements towards the weekend

Similar to the final days of last week, the first days of this week are expected to provide changeable conditions, being largely dominated by low pressure influences. By the end of the week and into the weekend, some improvements are foreseen temporarily, due to a ridge associated with the Azores High. Despite the low pressure at first, the conditions will nonetheless remain relatively calm, with only moderate wind speeds and wave heights. In the first half of the week, frontal troughs associated with the low pressure, could locally be accompanied by thunderstorms.

Currently, a low pressure area lingers just north of the United Kingdom, with a trough extending SE over the North Sea at first. The low is moving NW to Iceland today, but low pressure remains prevalent over the North Sea for the first part of the week: a secondary low is developing over Denmark in the meantime, extending a trough westwards over the North Sea from Wednesday onwards. The system will slowly retreat E from Thursday evening onwards, making place for a ridge of high pressure. Frontal troughs, locally accompanied by thunderstorms, affect the southeastern half of the North Sea during these days (Figure 1). With northwesterly winds below 20 kts and significant wave heights staying below 2m, the conditions remain still relatively calm.

By Thursday evening, a ridge associated with the Azores High is forecast to extend across the UK. The ridge advances eastwards across the North Sea afterwards, prevailing over the entire area on Friday. Due to the continuous eastward movement of the ridge, low pressure over the Norwegian Sea regains influence over the northern North Sea during the weekend. Associated frontal troughs mostly affect the northeastern half of the North Sea during the weekend. As the southwestern remains influenced by the Azores High ridge, the pressure gradient over the North Sea will increase during the weekend, causing the most rough conditions of the week by then: wind speeds up to 3 kts and waves reaching 3m are not uncommon during these moments, especially in the northeast.

Early next week, weather models suggest that the ridge renews over the area, as the low pressure area over the Norwegian Sea enters Scandinavia. Current projections indicate that next week will be characterised by changeable conditions, with ridges and troughs rapidly alternating. As next week is still far ahead and due to the synoptic changes by then, the uncertainty for this period increases. To remain informed about the latest weather developments, and to be updated about the risk of thunderstorms in the first half of this week, we recommend consulting the latest weather reports regularly.