So far, this winter was fairly mild and also unusually dry throughout large parts of Europe – but recent runs of the forecast models suggest that that might change soon. Currently, cold air is located over the Balkan, which even led to snow falling in Greece with pictures of the Acropolis covered in snow. The temperatures stay below 0 degrees Celsius even during daytime in the region. However in the rest of Europe to the north and west, the temperatures range from around 0 to 5 degrees.
The map below shows the current snow cover in Europe and the altitude at which the temperature reaches 0 deg. C (in meters) – as you can see, western and central Europe have absolutely no snow except for in the mountains, and the altitude of 0 degrees Celsius is located at around 2,000m.
The reason why it is cold in the southeast but comparatively warm but nonetheless dry in the rest of Europe is a high pressure area located over central Europe, which moves the cold air from Russia to the southwest towards the Mediterranean, while keeping upright a flow of mild air from the southwest and west towards the rest of Europe. The high is also blocking the rain coming from the Atlantic, though, resulting in the unusually dry weather for this season.
Towards new year’s eve, however, this high-pressure system is expected to weaken while at the same time a new one will form over the northern Atlantic and start to move east gradually. Ahead of that new high, the wind direction in central Europe will turn from west to north, and with the wind from the north comes cooler air.
A cold front will be located at the leading edge of this cold air mass, hence precipitation in liquid and solid form is to be expected. The level at which 0 degrees Centigrade are reached will fall to 200m, in some places possibly even right down to 0m. Except for Scandinavia, the first ones to be affected by this cold air will be the British Isles (UK and Ireland), with snow falling throughout Scotland and possibly even in some lower-lying areas of England. On the 2nd of January, the snow is then also expected to reach France, Germany and possibly Austria and Switzerland, with the largest amounts of snow expected to fall at the northern side of the Alps.
Although there will be snow, the temperatures will still range from around -3 to +5 degrees every day, and especially in the northern parts of central Europe the snow is expected to melt.
On Friday, new snow is expected to fall throughout large parts of Europe, and it will continue throughout the weekend especially in the Alps and the southern half of Germany, resulting in a predicted snow cover of over 10cm in some low-lying areas.
This is a brief overview of what is expected to happen in terms of winter in (central) Europe AS OF NOW; please do take note that these forecasts are still quite long-term and hence may change in the coming days.