The Met Office is warning people to expect temperatures below zero at night time as the week progresses, and is urging people to take care in colder conditions.
Tom Morgan, a meteorologist with the Met Office, said that while Monday will “start on a cold and frosty note” in the morning, it will be “a fine and sunny day for many of us, just a bit of fair weather cold and generally dry”.
“Make the most of the sunshine as it’s not going to last,” he added. “We will see thick cloud arriving and outbreaks of rain towards the end of Monday night into Tuesday. It’s quite a messy picture on Tuesday, with quite blustery winds, feeling pretty cold.”
The outlook for precipitation will change as the week progresses: “Most of the showers will be falling as rain on Tuesday, but as we go towards the middle part of the week, there is an increasing chance of some snow, initially over the higher ground, but I think there could well be a covering of snow down in some lower levels through the day.
Snowy scene on Cavehill in Belfast. Picture: Arthur Allison/Pacemaker Press
“On Wednesday, it is difficult at this point to say exactly which areas are going to see any accumulating snow, but obviously the higher up you are, the greater the chance of seeing some accumulating snow.
“Over the Sperrins, over the Mournes etc, that’s where we’re more likely to see several centimetres by the end of Wednesday.
“At lower levels, it’s more likely to be kind of transient snow, not lasting too long, but it will lead to risk of ice overnight.
“I think for Thursday morning and Friday morning, there could well be ice on any untreated surfaces, certainly a cold end of the week and the colder spell of weather this season.”
Snow on Belfast Hills (Luke Jervis)
The cold snap may come as a particular shock to some people as we have experienced an unseasonably warm start to November.
“From a UK perspective,” Mr Morgan says, “November has actually been the mildest on record to begin the month.
“For Northern Ireland, currently, November is running 2.7 degrees Celsius above average. It’s that the current mean temperature for the month so far across Northern Ireland is 9.4 Celsius, well above normal.
“The next week or so, we’re going to see below average so it’s really going to be a very marked change and a bit of a shock to the system.
“You’ll need your big thick winter coats out.”
A snowy scene on Cavehill in Belfast. (Arthur Allison)
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Given the fall in temperatures, Mr Morgan is advising people to “leave yourself longer for your journeys to work, whether that’s defrosting your car or just generally driving more slowly and to the conditions of the road.
“If you’re not driving, pavements will be potentially quite icy.”
