Wishing you a Merry Christmas! Snow will be in short supply as it's mild for most, but colder air is on the way down from the Northwest and will be across the whole country on Boxing Day.
First things first this morning - Merry Christmas to you from the whole team here at Netweather. For the vast majority, it is going to be a green, fairly mild but quite unsettled one, but there will be colder air heading down from the northwest during the day, bringing with it the threat of some snow in the north.
In fact, a weather warning has been issued for Northern, Western and Central Scotland by the Met Office to cover the threat of snow and ice from this evening at 9pm through to 6pm on Boxing Day. So, take that into account if you have travel plans in those regions, particularly if those involve roads across higher ground.
Scotland isn't the only place which could see some snow by the end of the day today, though, with at least a few flakes possible over the high ground of Northern Ireland and the far north of England. It'll also be quite windy in the north, with gales in exposed parts of Northern Scotland.
Elsewhere it'll be the wet, rather than the white stuff which falls out of the sky today, with showery rain moving west to east through the day along with the potential for a more persistent and potentially quite heavy and squally band of rain moving southeast later. This one is the cold front, introducing that fairly brief hit of colder air behind it, which will also mean the threat of snow transfers a bit further south to the hills of the remainder of northern England, North Wales, and perhaps the north Midlands overnight.
Boxing Day will see the cold air across all parts - so a very different feel to Christmas Day for many - for instance where it'll have reached 12c in the south on Xmas day, it'll only make it to 7c or so on Boxing Day. There'll be a good number of showers moving down in the northwest wind as well - these'll be wintry - falling as hail, sleet and snow in the north, with accumulations of snow on the high ground of North Wales, Northern England, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Elsewhere they'll be mostly of rain, but with some hail and sleet in the heavier ones.
A cold night, with a widespread frost and some icy stretches on roads and pavements, will follow. But then on Tuesday (that's the 27th, as we all begin to lose track of what day is what), a band of rain with snow on the leading edge in Scotland (ongoing on the highest hills) will move in from the west, introducing milder air again.
That milder, unsettled theme takes us ahead through toward the New Year, with Scotland the only place to flirt with colder air at times.
