Winter bites back

Last Friday, I wrote that cold weather was set to return this week, as winds from a northerly quarter bring a drop in temperature following last week’s brief milder spell.

Over the weekend, there has been quite a lot of excitement about the prospect of snow in the coming days. However, the difference between this cold spell and the last one is that the snow is unlikely to be as widespread.

I’m not saying that there won’t be any significant, disruptive snowfall this week, but the nature of the snowfall is different. Rather than huge bands of snow sweeping across us, it will fall in the form of showers, bringing the worst weather to focused areas.

I mentioned in my previous blog that showers are fuelled by very cold air moving over a relatively warm sea and are then blown over us by the wind. Therefore, wind direction is crucial in determining where these showers end up falling most frequently.

What you will tend to notice this week, as the wind changes direction day by day, is that the distribution of snow showers changes markedly.

This will be reflected on the warnings page of the Met Office website, with warnings tending to be quite specific with regards to the areas affected, whereas last week they covered large swathes of the country.

So whilst not all places will see snow, the universal features of the weather will be a drop in temperature, very strong winds giving significant wind chill, along with frost and ice – especially at night.

Monday

The wind will be from a westerly direction on Monday, with gales or severe gales in the north, giving blizzard conditions over the hills and mountains as heavy snow showers rattle through.

Snow showers will be most frequent across the western half of Scotland (including western end of central lowlands) and later Northern Ireland and north west England.

Away from the coast, 2-5cm could fall at low levels, with 10-20cm above 100-200 metres, drifting around in the strong wind.

During Monday night a band of sleet, hail and snow showers will push southwards across the UK, with a covering possible anywhere.

There’s also a signal for the Peak District, north east Midlands and parts of Lincolnshire to see a focused line of snow showers, with as much as 10cm in places – especially over the hills.

Ice will be an additional hazard for many as temperatures fall in between showers.

Tuesday

Tuesday will see the wind become north westerly, with the wintry showers becoming focused across Wales and the western half of England.

There’ll also be a weather front moving down across Scotland, which will bring some less cold air with it, so snow is likely to become confined to higher hills and mountains through the day as this sinks southwards into northern England.

Nevertheless, by this stage, higher parts of Scotland, Northern Ireland and north west England could have significant snowfall with some disruption.

Wednesday

The wind will be northerly by this stage, which places north east England, along with northern and eastern parts of Scotland at greatest risk of having heavy snow showers.

Areas with the most frequent snow showers could experience disruption, but again, there are quite a few places that will see little, if any.

So the devil will be in the detail during the next few days. As ever you can get the latest five day forecast on the Channel 4 Weather website. If you have any reports or pictures of snow, please send them to me on Twitter – @liamdutton