Powerful Arctic cold blast to hit Europe

Recent Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW) event above the North Pole is about to channel in very cold Arctic air into large parts of Europe starting early next week. Very cold weather could extend into early March.

"Global models are trending into a powerful blocking pattern developing across northern Europe, resulting in a channel for significant cold air advection from the Arctics and Russia towards Europe," SWE meteorologists warned. "Some models are pushing the very cold weather well W-SW towards western and SW Europe as well, so basically a large part of Europe will be affected by the SSW."

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"A Sudden Stratospheric Warming implies around a 70% chance of cold conditions across the UK," the UK Met Office Chief Operational Meteorologist Frank Saunders said.

"There tends to be a lag of about 10 days before we see the downstream effects on the UK’s weather, as it takes time for the influence in the upper atmosphere to feed down to those levels where our weather happens.

"The outcome for the UK’s weather is still uncertain, but forecasts from computer models at the Met Office and at other centers are beginning to coalesce around a greater likelihood of cold conditions in the days and weeks to come," he said.