Cold comfort: Icy blast to be replaced by unsettled weather
Snowboarder Jessica Murphy makes the most of the weekend’s icy blast close to her home on the Stacks Mountains near Tralee, Co Kerry. Forecasters say hazardous conditions will continue for parts of the country today, but the cold snap will give way to milder, wetter weather.
IRELAND is set to swap frost, ice and snow for wind and rain as an Atlantic weather front brings milder but more unsettled conditions.
While this morning will again see fog, a widespread ground frost and even some black ice along inland and mountainous areas, from tomorrow temperatures will rise and rain showers will sweep over the country.
Overnight temperatures will increase by a whopping 8C by mid week. Icy conditions caused havoc across Ireland yesterday as temperatures sank to -4C and many secondary roads were left in a treacherous condition due to ice and overnight snow showers. Connacht and Ulster suffered the worst of the Arctic conditions.
Gardaí confirmed multiple road traffic accidents are believed to be weather-related with collisions reported in Galway, Cork, Mayo, Dublin and Limerick. Status Yellow snow and ice warnings expired yesterday for the Republic as well as for four counties in Northern Ireland. Met Éireann warned that it will still be icy this morning before conditions become milder.
“Frost, fog and icy stretches will clear. Wintry showers, mainly of rain and sleet, will affect the north and north-west from early on,” a spokesperson said. “It will be generally dry elsewhere with sunny spells and just some isolated showers. It will be a little less cold with highest temperatures of 3C to 7C.
“Rain will spread to all areas during Tuesday morning, turning to sleet or snow at times over higher ground.
“A clearance to showers and occasional bright spells will follow from the south-west in the afternoon. After a cool start it will become milder from the south with afternoon highs of 6C to 10C, remaining cooler in Ulster. Wednesday will be mostly overcast with rain spreading to all areas Wednesday morning and becoming heavy at times bringing the risk of spot flooding. Highest temperatures will be of 7C to 11C.”
Thursday will be partly cloudy in most areas to start with before a band of rain slowly spreads across the country. Temperatures will rise to around 12C with unsettled conditions continuing into the weekend.