Updated 4th February 2022

There’s a lot of speculation in the media about snow blanketing the country in the coming days. But what is actually going to happen, and will you see snow where you live?

Met Office Chief Meteorologist, Andy Page said: “We have some fairly typical winter weather in store. It will often be windy, with bands of rain moving south-east followed by colder weather with wintry showers, these particularly affecting Scotland. It is not unusual for us to see snow in February, and there are no signals currently for anything out of the ordinary.”

The cold interlude has been brought in by an active cold front. which has now cleared south-east England. Behind this front colder air is spreading across the UK bringing a sharp fall in temperatures.

There has been snow across parts of Scotland, northern England and Wales and National Severe Weather warnings are in place for parts of Scotland for today (04/02/22) and the weekend. There was also some sleet and snow across central and southern England, particularly over the Chilterns, near the cold front.

As we go into the weekend we move from a cold north westerly airstream to a milder westerly air, at least for a time, although, the weather will stay windy for much of the UK and wet across western hills. Colder air with snow showers will return to Scotland again by Saturday night.

As we look ahead at the rest of February indications are that this pattern of milder spells with short colder interludes will continue. Northern areas are likely to see more rain and strong winds, interspersed with wintry showers and overnight frosts. While further south, it looks like milder, drier, but still often fairly cloudy conditions will dominate.

Why do we see these temperature variations during the winter months? They are the result of the jet stream oscillating around the UK. When the jet stream lies to the north of us, as it has been for the last few days, we see milder conditions. But if it dips further south, as it is over the next couple of days, it allows colder air from the north to cross the country and temperatures fall.