Issued: 0530hrs Thursday 25th December 2014
Duty forecaster: Garry Nicholson
Fair in south; becoming windy Italy & Alps
Christmas Day
A fine and sunny day for most of Spain and Portugal, although there will be patchy showery rain in the north of Iberia. Plenty of dry and sunny weather across the Mediterranean, with isolated showers. Sunshine for Greece and Turkey. Locally windy in the south of France. A band of cloud and patchy rain, plus snow over the Alps extends across central Europe, including France, Switzerland and Austria, also southern Germany. Windy and cold in northern Germany, the Low Countries and Denmark, with snow flurries. Snow may turn heavy in northern Poland. Very cold across Scandinavia, but largely dry for southern areas of Norway and Sweden. Frequent snow showers in northern Norway. Dry and very cold in Finland. Low pressure centred over western Russia brings snow.
Boxing Day
Dry and sunny again for Spain and Portugal. Fair too for southern France and northern Italy, although it will be very windy early in the morning near the southern Alps. Rain and wind arrives for north-west France later in the day. Dry but increasingly cloudy for Belgium and the Netherlands. Some sunshine for Germany, Denmark and Poland and the risk of snow flurries. A period of snow across the Balkans, Romania and Bulgaria, with rain moving into Greece and Turkey. Scattered showers for the Greek Islands and western Turkey. Remaining very cold throughout Scandinavia, with frequent snowfall in northern and western Norway. A cold north-westerly wind in the Baltic, and a few snow showers for Sweden and Finland.