If you’ve found the skies particularly gloomy over the last couple of days, you are not alone.
Britain is currently in the midst of a ‘depressing’ weather phenomenon known as ‘anticyclonic gloom’, experts say.
Typified by grey skies, mist and low cloud, it means that the sky has a uniformly drab colour – with the sun is nowhere to be seen.
Low clouds or fog can become trapped when a cool area of high pressure moves over moist land.
The moisture then evaporates, leading to daytime mist and low clouds, an effect described by writer Bill Bryson as like ‘living inside Tupperware’.
Another misty day in London yesterday as a woman walks alongside the River Thames
A house in the Oxfordshire village of Dunsden next to fields under the gloom yesterday
In a post on X, the Met Office described the miserable weather event, which has been called ‘so depressing’ and ‘awful’ by Brits.
Met Office says in its X post: ‘This week’s weather phrase [is] anticyclonic gloom.
‘This can occur when high pressure traps a layer of moisture near to the Earth’s surface.
‘[It’s] bringing a prolonged period of dull and cloudy weather, with mist and fog also possible.
‘How would you describe today’s weather?’
One user replied: ‘I mean the lack of wind and rain is great but the heavy gloomy sky, my God is so depressing.
‘It’s been the same for a full week and your forecast is the same all this week too.
Gloomy weather in London last Friday, as a view of the Canaray Wharf skyline can be seen
A pedestrian walks through misty weather in Wallingford, Oxfordshire, last Thursday
‘Just awful, claustrophobic almost.’
Someone else said: ‘Felt that claustrophobia for a few days.
‘Never realised not being able to see the sky for so long would have that effect.’
Yet another said: ‘We have a summer with little or no anti-cyclonic weather and when we do it’s in November and depressingly dull.’
Anticyclonic gloom, also known by meteorologists as a ‘dirty high’, typically moves away after a week, but this particular episode could stick around for two weeks.
Met Office issued its update at the start of the week, meaning the gloom could persist until November 18.
The Met Office’s forecast says today’s conditions will be mostly cloudy with hill fog and odd patches of drizzle, although there may be sunshine in northern Scotland.
Friday will see a mostly cloudy and dry day, slightly cooler than Thursday, and with the best chance of brightness towards the north and west.