Plenty of dry weather, but sunshine limited until next week

Oldham weather expert Jon Baylis visited Spain in September and the area was desperate for rain, and this week the rain came; but too much, in such a short space of time in parts of eastern Spain.

A total of 343mm fell in four hours in one location and over a year’s worth of rain fell in over eight hours (500mm).

With the land so dry and arid, this volume of water immediately ran off surfaces, into the streets turning them into dirty, raging rivers.

The loss of life is of no surprise.

Unfortunately, since weather warnings don’t always come true, a lot will have ignored warnings.

Whether it’s a yellow, amber or a red warning, you should always read it and take onboard the risk.

It could save your life, whatever country you’re in.

Luckily our weather is now in a much more settled, benign and boring pattern with high pressure in control.

Unfortunately it’s a “cloudy high”.

Cloud gets trapped under the high and circles around it, hard to shift now that the sun is lacking in strength at this time of the year.

With high pressure in place at least there’s plenty of dry weather to be had, apart from drizzle where cloud is at its thickest.

Here's Jon's latest in-depth forecast for our area:

Today (Thursday): He's hopeful we see a drier day than Wednesday after it was drizzly in places.

A mostly cloudy day with perhaps some bright spots here and there.

Dry for most, but again Jon can’t rule out some pockets of drizzle.

Max 14°C Min 8°C.

Friday: Rinse and repeat for Friday. Little change.

Max 14°C Min 8°C.

Weekend: Hopefully some sunny spells by Sunday.

Some local low-cloud bringing some mist and fog patches, especially on the hills.

Saturday: Cloudy, dry and a little cooler.

Slight southeasterly breeze.

Max 13°C Min 7°C.

Sunday: Cool with sunny spells developing after a cloudy start. Another dry day.

Colder night than recently where clear spells persist.

Max 12°C Min 5°C.

Outlook: High pressure staying in control. Dry weather aplenty.

Variable amounts of cloud during the day with some sunny spells.

A sunnier week than this week looks likely.

Cold nights where skies clear with some localised ground-frost and mist or fog patches.

No rain expected all week.

Follow @ChadWeather on X for the latest forecasts and warnings.

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