Issued: 0530hrs Thursday 26th February 2009
Duty forecaster: John Ejdowski

Fine across western Mediterranean

Today
Mostly cloudy, mild but a mainly dry day across England with outbreaks of rain across much of Belgium, Holland, Denmark and much of Germany. Some snow is likely over the Bavarian Alps. It remains fair, mild and dry across France today with the south sunniest. It also remains sunny and pleasantly warm and sunny across Portugal and Spain. An area of rain, sleet and snow will affect Finland, Russia, The Baltic States, Belarus into the Ukraine and Poland. Mostly dry across Norway and northern Sweden with rain for southern Sweden. This looks heavy and mixed with sleet. Heavy snow is expected to develop across Austria during the day. Fine and sunny weather extends fro Spain into the Balearics and across into Italy and Greece. Very unsettled with rain and heavy showers across Turkey. Large dry and cold with sunny spells across Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania.
Expect top temperatures of 12C in London, 8C for Brussels, 9C for Paris, 19C for Madrid, 11C in Rome, 4C in Bucharest, 11C in Athens, 1C in Warsaw, 2C in Berlin, -7C in Moscow and 1C for Stockholm.

Friday
The mild weather continues across the United Kingdom and western parts of Europe. Largely dry but with a lot of cloud for England. Mostly cloudy too across the Low Countries, Holland, Germany and Denmark with some patchy light rain. Sporadic outbreaks of mainly light snow will continue today from Finland into western Russia, the Baltic States into Belarus, Poland, the Ukraine and Romania. Much of Norway and Sweden should be dry with sunny spells. A lot of fine, sunny and pleasantly warm weather to come across Spain, France into the Balearics. Some rain and showers will push into southern Italy today and into the former Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Hungary. Dry across Greece and western Turkey but heavy showery rain will affect the east.