Issued: 0530hrs Friday 8th January 2010
Duty forecaster: Simon Keeling

Wet and windy through the Mediterranean, colder to the north

Friday
A cold plunge of air across eastern parts of Spain, and windy here as well. Snow showers over northern parts of Spain, with sunny spells and some sunshine for Portugal. A cloudy and wet day with sleet showers through Iberia. Rain, sleet, snow and strong winds across southern France, whilst heavy rain pushes into Italy. Much milder weather for Greece with southerly winds bringing drier air and sunshine here. More sunshine to come through Turkey, the south being warm, but much colder in the north.
Across central Europe it is going to be windy and cloudy to the south with rain, sleet and snow. More northern areas of central Europe such as northern France, the Low Countries, Germany and Poland will be much colder and breezy. There could be some wintry flurries here at times and it will be feeling cold.
High pressure for Denmark, southern and central Norway and Sweden bringing dry weather here. Cold as well with mainly light winds. More cloud for the north bringing some wintry showers here and the threat of sleet and snow. More persistent snow across Finland and the Baltic States.

Saturday
Cold through eastern parts of Spain again today, bringing some wintry showers here. The sleet and snow showers could reach the Balearics as well. Fair weather through more central and western parts of Iberia with the best of sunshine through Portugal. The deep area of low pressure brings more rain across northern Italy, this pushing into western Greece. For eastern Greece and Turkey there will be sunshine and it should be dry as well as warm.
For France and much of central Europe the low pressure brings strong winds. There will be heavy periods of snow across much of Sweden, possibly northern Italy, Austria and Hungary. This area extending to southern parts of Poland. Snow flurries through much of Poland and Germany, this spreading to the Low Countries and northern France.
High pressure is settled across Scandinavia and this will bring dry weather and windy conditions through Denmark as well as the far south of Sweden. Most of the rest of Scandinavia should be dry and cold, although some snow may affect northern Norway and northern Finland and Sweden later.