Ireland is set to experience its first taste of very cold weather this winter.
Strong northerly winds will sweep down over Ireland early late on Monday bringing scattered heavy wintry showers of hail and sleet with snow for the mountains. Temperatures will struggle to reach above 3-5c by day on Tuesday and Wednesday and will drop to below freezing each night.
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| GFS Model output for Tuesday night showing strong northerly winds carrying heavy wintry showers along the North and the West coast of Ireland. Image ogimet.com. Click to enlarge. |
According to Met Eireann: "Tuesday and Wednesday of next week will be very cold with widespread blustery showers. The showers will be frequent in the west and north - many turning wintry especially over high ground with falls of hail and sleet, along with sharp or severe night frosts."
Irish Weather Online (IWO) forecaster Peter O'Donnell added: "Monday and Tuesday will become colder with moderate northwest winds, showers becoming wintry on higher ground in north, but also some sunny intervals, lows -3 to +2 C and highs 4-7 C. Wednesday could be even colder with significant snowfalls developing in parts of the inland north and on higher ground elsewhere, highs only 2-5 C after morning lows near -3 to -1 C."
"Following this, turning somewhat milder in stages as the northerly feed is cut off by a weak although cool zonal westerly flow in the north, and anticyclonic conditions in the south. Severe or sharp frosts may continue but daytimes may not be as cold and certainly more settled or less windy. The evolution is not too reliable past seven days and the strong North American storm may blast through all of the postulated weak features to create a more rapid warming trend (which would be around Thursday or Friday of next week)," Mr. O'Donnell stated.
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