Mild for a time then Colder

After the coldest December on record in many parts of Ireland a lot of people will now be looking to see what January 2011 has in store for us and are we going to be pounded by more snow and Arctic temperatures again. Well it would seem that the cold theme will certainly continue for January but whether it will be of the bone-chilling variety that we saw in December 2010 is open to question.

It does look like some areas at least are going to see more snowfall during the month but this will be kept updated during the next few days as the nice mild weather that we have been enjoying slowly ebbs away letting a cold variable followed by a biting Northerly into the fold. This would place Ulster under the most danger of seeing snow and temperatures in the first week of January could dip as low as minus 7 at night.

Arctic Ireland

The map is showing the extent of the current Arctic conditions that are continuing to prevail in Ireland. Now it looks like St Stephens Day is going to see a band of heavy rain moving in off the Atlantic that will be preceded by sleet or snow and after a Christmas Max of only 0c the temperature on December 26th will reach 6 or 7c in the rain eventually. The current spell has seen all sorts of records broken and it WILL be the coldest December on record. The average temperature for the whole of Ireland is only -1.2c nearly 7 degrees BELOW normal. The minimum has reached as low as -18c in Castlederg Co Tyrone and -17.2c in Foxford Co Mayo.

Satelite of Ireland on 22 Dec 2010 courtesy of http://www.sat24.com/ 

Bitterly Cold Weather on Way

Ireland is in for a bitterly cold spell of Arctic weather in the next 4 to 5 days. It all starts off on the night of December 16th and it looks like it is going to wreak havoc with people's travel plans over the Christmas period.

Thursday night sees heavy wintry showers of hail sleet and snow with some drifting in Donegal but this will become more widespread over Ulster and some parts of North Connaught too later on in the night.

On Friday the snow showers continue throughout the country perhaps turning to sleet as the real cold from the Low has yet to set in. Showers will be widespread on Friday evening though and this could bring a lot of snow to many parts of Ireland that will still be on the ground come Christmas due to freezing temperatures.

Saturday and Sunday will have further outbreaks of sleet and snow and though some Met Services are saying it wont be as bad as the cold spell we had at the beginning of the month it will probably bring more snow to some regions, just not the record Low temperatures... or will it?

Possible Snow from Thursday onwards

Ireland is set to see a week that starts off cold but becomes very cold with some cold and Arctic conditions setting in and temperatures barely above freezing by Friday. Snow could become a problem by this time too.

Image from http://www.sat24.com/ shows a lot of cold and frosty air over Ireland and the UK as of December 12th 2010

Thaw Slowly Sets In -- Briefly

THE BIG THAW - is about to start this Thursday December 9th with temperatures rising significantly to 4c to 8c before reaching the dizzy heights of 10 or 11c at the weekend

Image from http://www.sat24.com/ shows snow cover for Ireland and UK on Wednesday 8th December.

Cold Weather Just Wont Go Away

In what has truly been a remarkable period of cold weather so far with a record low of minus 16.4c in Mount Juliet and Minus 12.6c in Oak Park in Carlow (courtesy of http://www.met.ie/) the cold weather shows no sign of going away at all during the month of December 2010. In fact frost could be experienced on most of the nights of December.

There is however some hope at least of a brief thaw period for next weekend meaning at least temperatures will get up to the dizzy heights of 9c before plummeting again in the period up to Christmas. At the moment though there may also be another brief milder period around the Christmas but it is very far away yet and the weather models have varying degrees of confidence over this issue.