A quick look back at October reveals a warmer than average month across Europe, notably in Spain. For the UK, it was 1.8C above the 1981-2010 average. However, cloudy skies made it the equal dullest October in Northern Ireland in a series from 1929.

Sunday 5 November was a glorious autumn day for most of us. The satellite imagery from NASA, pictured above,shows the cloud patterns across the UK and Ireland.

A more localised air frost is expected on Wednesday morning (8 November) but the remainder of this week should be milder and breezy. Friday and Saturday could be windiest days of the week and as the winds turn northwesterly we'll see another dip in temperatures early next week.

After the clear skies from Sunday, most places saw a frost this morning (6 November) and the map on the main pageshows the lowest overnight temperatures in Celsius.

The next week or two is looking very changeable but there are signs that the last two weeks of the month will be slightly more settled. A weaker jet stream, less low pressure from the Atlantic and more high pressure over Europe will mean the increasing potential for colder winter weather to become widespread across large parts of Europe.

At the same time, it would become drier and sunnier but with colder than average night time temperatures. However, confidence is low so if we notice the first signs of this happening, we'll update the weather blog with more detail for the second part of November.

Overall for the month of November in Ireland and the UK, we're expecting a slightly colder than average month, sunshine levels to be above average, and most of the wind and rain coming in the first half, notably to Scotland.

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