The Met Office said it “will turn more widely colder” in the coming days after temperatures peaked at 11.6C in Gosport, Hampshire, and 11C in Plymouth, Devon, on the weekend
This striking weather map shows the exact date snow is forecast again in the UK.
Temperatures are set to plunge in the coming days after a mild weekend, during which the mercury hit 11C in Gosport, Hampshire, and Plymouth, Devon among other places. It will be wet and windy for most of this week, until conditions turn wintry on Sunday.
Snow is expected as far south as Essex on Sunday morning, and will be heaviest across Suffolk. The weather map below has been published by meteorologists at Metdesk, who say snow will then return again on Tuesday or Wednesday next week during a cold spell.
Steven Keates, Met Office deputy chief forecaster, said: “While it does look increasingly likely that conditions will turn more widely colder into next week, the timing and extent of this colder air remains uncertain. There are variations between the different weather models, and although a few show very low temperature values, this is currently the minority. The majority indicate below-average temperatures from the east, but nothing too extreme at the moment.”
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The mercury reached 11.6C in Hampshire on Sunday, the Met Office said. However, it will feel as cold as -5C on Sunday during the Arctic snap, which the Mirror reported may last for several weeks. During the start of this period, it will snow across parts of the East of England, the Southeast of England and parts of Scotland.
By 9am on Sunday, it will be fairly heavy across Essex and Cambridgeshire. The white hue on the map denotes the snow across these areas and others, including County Durham and the Scottish Highlands. This will later turn to rain on Sunday afternoon, heaviest across Fife in Scotland.
Nick Finnis, who is meteorologist with Netweather, described the change in the balmy recent patch to the cold front as “a battleground”. He wrote on the site’s blog: “A battleground looks to play out in the days ahead across the UK between a large high pressure system extending west from Siberia and a queue of lows coming in from the west, thanks to an increasingly powerful jet stream moving east out of the Eastern Seaboard of North America across the North Atlantic and on into western Europe.”
Referring to the “battleground,” Mr Finnis added: “This may allow cold air to flood west over the North Sea from Scandinavia, initially the coldest of this air flooding across the north and northeast on Sunday, but perhaps cold air flooding across all areas on Monday, perhaps cold enough for snow too, but uncertainty over this.”
