UK Fog Alert: Travel Warning Issued for Parts of England
The Met Office put a yellow fog warning in force from 6pm Sunday to 11am Monday, from York to Bath. Bus, train and flight delays are possible, and visibility may drop to 50 metres. Rain is forecast from Tuesday to Thursday.
The Met Office, the UK's national weather service, has issued a yellow warning for fog that put a travel warning in place for parts of the UK from 6pm Sunday until 11am Monday. Delays to bus and train services are possible, along with flight cancellations.
Fog.
The alert zone stretches from York to Bath and covers much of the South East and eastern England. That is where the fog is expected to be densest, though low-lying cloud will also affect other areas.
Why the fog is forming
Niamh Murray, a Met Office operational meteorologist, said conditions are ideal at this time of year. "We just have the perfect recipe at the moment: light winds, clear skies, long nights, to allow that fog to develop," she said.
She told the Press Association that longer autumn and winter nights let temperatures fall away. Air then sits closer to the temperature at which it becomes saturated and forms fog.
Fog also needs light winds, "not absolutely no winds", Murray said. Negative temperatures can make it "quite stubborn to clear the next day".
Where it may linger
Near-freezing temperatures in rural parts of Wales, East Anglia and the Midlands overnight could make the fog particularly persistent into Monday morning. Visibility may fall to 50 metres or less in places.
Outside the warning area, patchy fog is still likely. "Parts of the West Country could still see fog, Northern Ireland, really anywhere across much of the UK, even into the central belt of Scotland," Murray said. It will be "just not quite as dense or as impactful".
Rain on the way
Forecasters expect rain across the country from Tuesday to Thursday, which Murray called "pretty welcome". She said most places are likely to see 10 to 20mm, with a chance of 30mm in some areas.
The South West is the exception. Severe drought has been declared there and is still enforced by the Environment Agency, the government body that manages water resources in England.
"There is a chance that we might see some very slow-moving rain, and you could see potentially accumulations up to 50 to 70 mm," Murray said.
