There is plenty of spots across Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland that are or will be reporting snow today through Tuesday. The snow showers of today will be hit and miss but there is a more substantial chance of snow Monday-Tuesday as a system interacts and pulls in colder air from the east.

Here’s the latest ECMWF 500mb heights.

Mon (48 hrs)

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By 72 hrs or next Wednesday, the strongest heights are further to the west and north of the UK, so heights will continue to fall, meaning colder air gets pulled in. The trough axis will remain to the east of the UK along with the main low, this will draw the cold, continental air in from the east as well as a northerly flow, thanks to the ridge not too far to the west. Fronts associated with the system will provide the needed moisture, within a cold and dry air mass, to produce snowfall. And so, while it’s perhaps just snow showers that are hit and miss now, the setup is there for a more significant snow Monday-Tuesday.

At both 72 and 96 hours off the ECMWF, notice the flow coming in from the north. This riding over top of a fresh snow pack will produce some rather cold nights, particularly during the 2nd half of the week for both the UK and Ireland, Ireland too may see snow to come mid to late next week.

Here’s the 500mb heights for Thursday.

Check out those heights within the core of the trough. 522 heights centred over Germany extending west into the low countries will produce some very cold nights, especially with snow covered ground.

The UK should see the coldest weather of the winter between Tuesday night and Friday as a settled but cold high builds in. The northerly flow over the next 96 hours will continue to pull in colder and colder air aloft and under clear skies, light winds and snow on the ground, some of this cold air aloft will be pulled down to the surface. Lows could dip to near -15C over parts of the Highlands, perhaps even parts of rural England.

Here’s the 500mb for Friday.

While the ECMWF may hint at milder air trying to get back in by Friday and next weekend, I wouldn’t buy into this too much. Bare in mind the amount and depth of low level cold air by this time with a decent snowcover helping to refrigerate with lower atmosphere . The milder, Atlantic air will have a tough time getting in and I don’t believe it will any time next week.

What I think will happen is, that as we progress through the next 48 hours and the model gets a better handle on the amount of cold getting on and over the growing snowpack, the late week period will likely grow colder and colder on the model and this pattern should continue into the last week of January.

Finally, here’s the GFS 16 day temp anomaly, note there is no warmth shown her for the UK.

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