Issued: 0530hrs Wednesday 16th January 2008
Duty forecaster: John Ejdowski
Wet and windy for central and northern parts of Europe
Today
Patchy rain will clear from United Kingdom today and turning colder. Largely dry across France except for a few scattered showers. Milder but windy across Scandinavia with gales and heavy rain across Norway spreads east into Sweden and Finland. This area of rain will stretch from Scandinavia into Holland, The Baltic States into Germany and then into southern France. Over the Alpine Region this will fall as heavy snow. To the east it's a fine, dry but cold day for Poland, Belarus into Russia and the Ukraine. Windy and turning colder across Iberia with rain in the south of Spain clearing to showers. Rain is expected across the Balearics today with a band of heavy rain spreading into northern parts of Italy.
Just a few showers across the former Czech Republic with light rain across Greece. Fair and dry with high pressure over Hungary, Romania into Bulgaria and Turkey.
Thursday
Gales will affect the United Kingdom with heavy rain clearing to sunshine and showers, The wind and rain spreads into France this morning and the Low Countries by the afternoon. The rain looks very heavy across south west France. Strong gales will affect the channel today with gusts to 70 mph. Mostly a dry but rather cloudy day across Germany with a few spots of drizzle. Outbreaks of rain will affect Finland with sunnier spells and a few showers for Norway and Sweden. The rain across Finland will stretch south across The Baltic States into Poland, the former Czech Republic into Austria, Switzerland and across Italy with snow over the Alps.
Light rain is expected across the former Yugoslavia with a dry, sunny day for Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, eastern Greece and Turkey. Light rain will move into western Greece. Another area of rain will skirt the far north of Spain, otherwise a dry, mostly sunny day across Iberia.