The wild winter weather we have endured over recent days will likely go down as some of the most extreme in many a year with one report stating it’s the biggest snowfall in the UK since 1981. While the snowfall eases, the cold most certainly won’t over the next 7 days. Our incredible endgame pattern holds firm till at least the first week of April but at least it turns somewhat more settled.

I am simply amazed to see the models show colder air push across the UK over the next few days and with a lot of snow on the ground, with high pressure promoting clearer night skies and lighter winds, we STILL may see -10C nights and a chance at pushing the coldest yet of winter despite the fact we change our clocks to British summertime next week.

I said to my wife just last night how amazing it was at 6.45pm to see snow on the ground and daylight that late into the evening, very rare and certainly not something I can ever remember in my lifetime.

The winds have been brutalising to say the least and with 850 temps growing colder yet again with -10C crossing overhead in the last week of March, well that is simply incredible.

With sunshine and light winds, temperatures should warm in places through this week but that warmth will be restricted by snowcover. Now, despite the howling wind and cloud cover which has helped hold daytime temps at 0 to 2C yesterday and today have you noticed your snow shrinking still? That’s because the sun is so much stronger now and although it feels bitter, the stronger rays are still managing to melt the snow. Get rid of wind and cloud and it feels very pleasant. By night though with clear skies, light winds, cold air aloft and snow cover, it still gets bitterly cold. We’ll see that this week.

Here’s the GFS 850 chart for Monday.

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Wednesday

Friday

So through the upcoming week, though we will continue to see an easterly feed of air flowing in from the continent, higher pressure will support somewhat more settled conditions with the brightest skies in the West. Snow showers will continue to feed into eastern areas also.

By next week, models show another potentially disruptive snow event as warmer, moist air tries to nudge in from the southwest. This will have to be watched closely and will post more on this soon.

The question now is, when will spring arrive?

Firstly, here’s the latest AO ensemble.

This has ultimately been responsible for bringing us the ‘January-level cold’ while the NAO has helped deliver that cold to the UK and western Europe. As you can see it’s only just bottomed out and until this rises and reaches nearer neutral, I don’t see any arrival of spring. That latest model shows it, although climbing, but staying well into negative territory well into April, this suggests spring remains a long way off.

I believe we should begina warming trend by the second week of April and by mid-April on, we may start to warm proper.

As for the ‘deliverer of cold’, the NAO, well as you can see below, it too remains strongly negative well into April. With the two indexes holding well below the neautral line into April, this suggests no warm-up arrives till at least the second week of April..

Don’t be fooled into thinking we warm up this weekend as milder air appears to push in from the southwest. The cold will be too strong and so any moisture which pushes in, will turn to snow and we may well see yet another disruptive snow event.

Here’s the latest GFS snow chart which sees yet more snowfall for parts of Ireland and the UK next Saturday.

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