High anchored to the west and low to the east has the UK, along with France, Low Countries and Germany at the mercy of a cold draft from the north that’s more suited to winter rather than late spring.

5,000ft level temps are unusually cold at between -5 to -10C throughout the entire UK atmosphere.

This arctic air stream is sweeping across mainland Europe around the south side of the low centred over N Germany.

Winter-like air masses can’t survive within the daytime lower atmosphere due to late August strength sun but wind and showers make this air mass noticeable.

Sure, it feels pleasant out of the wind, so, you may experience April and January within a matter of seconds. When the sun shines and winds are light, it feels like April but when those showers rattle through, the cold suspended a few thousand feet up, suddenly drops to earth, hence why air temps read 8C in sunshine then 1C with snow falling the next. The wind is downright icy even with sunshine.

Following overnight snow showers and the continuation of a gusty northerly, wind chills remain sub-freezing across the majority of the UK.

Yes, on the face of it, air temps are largely above freezing now but get in the breeze and it doesn’t feel like it this morning.

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Where’s it snowing just now?

This morning’s snowy scenes over Highland Scotland.

Snow lying on the Dutch tulip fields this morning too.

Further snow accumulation expected over the next few days.

Yesterday’s maximum temps across Europe.

It was about as cold as it get’s by late April standards.

With lighter winds and cold overhead, expect nights to turn colder with lower temps and harder frost outwith urban areas with a shot at -8C over the snowfields of Highland Scotland, possibly Pennines/York Moors.

Some chance comes late week as low pressure forms south of Iceland and nudges into NW Scotland later Thursday/Friday.

Timing with this thing is everything. The models have some decent snow with this but it’s going to be determined upon time of day. Expect little snow impact if during the day but within the cool of night, snow could fall and temporarily stick at low levels.

According to the newest run of the GFS, this low opens the door to a more active ATLANTIC storm track next week but do we get away from this chilly regime?

GFS ensemble shows a very cold day 1-5 followed by a less cold but still below normal regime day 6-10 which takes us into May.

Yes, the 500mb height anomaly snap shots do suggests warmer air attempting to lift north into the UK towards the end of May’s opening week.

See this morning’s video.

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