I posted briefly posted first thing this morning about the prospects of an end of April/last gasp cold snap for Western Europe. Models still show this and here’s a look at the surface charts which show low pressure exiting SSE from the UK this weekend, opening the door to some pretty cold air.

It turns much more unsettled right across Western Europe as the trough dives south.

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As well as the prospects of cold northerly winds and possibly even snow (mainly on hills), we look to have our first real low in quite a few weeks that will bring strong wind and heavy rain. It’s once this thing exits that it appears to turn cold with air eventually drilling south out of the arctic.

Keep in mind that we’ll be knocking on the door of May and so it will be chilly, especially in the wind but this air mass will have limitations giving that the sun angle is very high and strong. Highs though may be held in the 6-10C range over Northern parts of the UK and many other areas with nights near freezing. Night precip could potentially fall as sleet or snow, if heavy enough in places but this is a LONG WAY OUT and could well change completely. Worth watching closely though.

102 hrs

114 hrs over the UK/Ireland.

144 hrs

168 hrs

204 hrs

240 hrs

The ECMWF has impressively cold 850mb temps by next Friday.

Here’s the ECMWF snow chart through 240 hrs. Yes, it has snow over the Highlands and Southern Uplands of Scotland, the high plateaus of northern Spain, Alps.

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