The UK is braced for periods of snowfall as cold weather grips the nation over the coming weeks. The latest weather maps from WX Charts show flurries of the white stuff arriving as soon as Sunday, October 26.
The snow will hit Inverness and the Scottish Highlands during the early hours of the morning. According to the charts, up to 0.8cm could fall per hour at this time. The snow will persist throughout the day and until 6pm in the evening. After a brief break in flurries, the snow will then return at around 6am on Monday, October 27.
The maps show up to 0.5cm falling per hour in western parts of Scotland. It will then become heavier by 12pm with up to 1cm forecast to fall per hour.
The snow will become lighter in Scotland throughout October 27 before persisting into the early hours of the following day. The maps show up to 1cm per hour falling in the Scottish Highlands during the early hours of the morning on Tuesday, October 28.
WX Charts then expects a few days of respite from the snow before it makes a return on Saturday, November 1. According to the maps, up to 2cm of snow could fall per hour in western areas at 12pm.
The snow will gradually move northwards in the afternoon with hthe heaviest flurries forecast at 6pm. Around 2.5cm could fall per hour in the Scottish Highlands at this time.
The snow forecast comes as temperatures are expected to plunge across the British Isles. WX Charts is predicting temperatures in the single digits in a number of areas on Monday, October 27.
Various counties in Scotland could be set for between 0C and -1C between 1am and 1pm, the maps suggest including: the Highlands, Moray, Perth and Kinross, Sterling, Argyll and Bute, western Angus, Aberdeenshire, Dumfries and Galloway, South Lanarkshire, the Scottish Borders, West Lothian, City of Edinburgh, Midlothian, and East Lothian, and down towards northern parts of Cumbria and Northumberland in the far north of England.
The Met Office long-range forecast, which runs from Tuesday, October 21 until Thursday, October 30, states that “unsettled weather” is expected across the UK. It adds: “This means further spells of rain or showers, possibly accompanied by strong winds at times, with one particular watch point for this in the first couple of days of this period.”
The forecaster is also expecting “cooler” and “more showery” weather in northern areas as “high pressure builds over the Atlantic and low pressure becomes centred to the east of the UK.”