Issued: 0530hrs Saturday 26th January 2008
Duty forecaster: John Ejdowski
Settled and pleasantly mild across the Mediterranean and Iberia
Today
Severe gales will sweep across southern parts of Scandinavia, The Netherlands, Denmark into northern Poland and later the Baltic States. A fairly mild day across much of Europe with much of England and The Low Countries fair and dry. An area of rain will lie from the Baltic States across Poland, southern Sweden into Denmark, Holland and the north of Germany. Colder air spreading in across Norway will bring snow showers to western areas while central and eastern parts are dry with sunny spells. Mostly sunny too across northern Sweden while outbreaks of snow are forecast for Finland. Very cold across Russia with some heavy snow showers and Moscow may see some freezing rain too. Rain sleet and snow will fall across Belarus and the Ukraine today with gales expected.
High pressure is centred over France so it will be a dry day with sunny spells but a number of locally dense fog patches may be slow to clear from central parts of France. This high also dominates Portugal and Spain so fine, dry and sunny here as well with temperatures climbing into the mid teens. This fine weather will prevail eastward into the Balearics into Italy. Fair and dry across Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria but quite cold. It's also settled across The Alpine Region into the former Czech Republic, Romania and Hungary.
Sunday
As the winds switch to the north, eastern parts of Europe will be turning much colder today but still mild in the west. Mostly dry and bright across the United Kingdom today. Sunny and dry as well across France with morning fog patches. An area of heavy rain will be across Germany with some light rain into Belgium. An area of snow and heavy snow showers will affect Russia into the Baltic States, Belarus, the Ukraine into the Czech Republic and Austria. In the afternoon snow showers then spread into Romania, the former Yugoslavia and into Bulgaria but some sunshine is expected as well, especially in the morning after a frosty start.
It continues fine and sunny for Spain, Portugal, the Balearics into Italy, much of Greece and Turkey but still cold across Turkey. Very cold across Scandinavia but it looks sunny except for a few snow showers around the western coasts of Norway. Later this gives way to rain. Temperatures across Finland may struggle to reach freezing with a brisk north west wind.