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Sam Boal
Cold Snap
Status Orange alert for 16 counties tonight as temperatures to plunge well below zero
The weekend will feature milder weather but temperatures may drop again next week.
LAST UPDATE | Dec 15th 2022, 3:01 PM
MET ÉIREANN HAS issued another Status Orange warning for low temperatures and ice from 6pm today until noon tomorrow, with 16 mostly inland counties to be impacted.
Freezing fog, and severe frost and ice are forecast tonight for Carlow, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Longford, Meath, Offaly, Westmeath, Cavan, Monaghan, Clare, Cork, Limerick, Tipperary, Galway, Roscommon.
10 other counties remain under a Status Yellow low temperature and ice warning until noon tomorrow, although the UK Met Office has not put any warnings in place for Northern Ireland.
A lowest temperature of -10.8 degrees was recorded in Co Cavan last night and lows of -5 to -8 degrees are expected this evening.
The weekend is set to offer a break from the cold as milder weather is expected however, it will become cooler again from next Tuesday.
Today is set to be very cold, though sunny and mainly dry with a few wintry showers in the north and northwest.
Temperatures will remain below freezing in some parts of the midlands throughout the day, as temperatures will range between 0 and +3 degrees generally, with it being slightly warmer along the coasts.
Tomorrow will still be very cold but, but freezing fog will gradually clear. There will be isolated rain showers which will become heavier and more widespread across the western part of the country. Isolated thunderstorms and hail is also forecasted for the northwest coasts, which will transition to snow and sleet further inland.
The weather models in a better agreement that it will turn cooler again next week with temperatures dropping back from Tuesday. Still uncertainty beyond midweek but risk of cool Christmas increasing… pic.twitter.com/hOEj6Jcoxn
— Carlow Weather (@CarlowWeather) December 15, 2022
Temperatures will rang from 0 to +3 degrees during the afternoon, however Friday night will not be a bitterly cold as the weather we have been experiencing. It will go between -3 and +2 degrees generally.
Later in the night, outbreaks of rain and sleet will become more widespread with some turning to snow, especially over higher ground.
Saturday will see a gradual return to more moderate weather, as temperatures will rise to between 4 and 8 degrees in the south and 1 and 3 degrees in the northern half of the country.
Saturday night will coldest early on, with lows of -1 degrees in the north and +2 degrees in the south, but it will turn much milder in the south later in the night as a band of rain pushes up.
As it meets the cooler air over the northern half of the country it may fall as sleet or even snow over higher ground for a time before transitioning back to rain.
On Sunday it will become milder everywhere with showery outbreaks of rain on Sunday night while Met Éireann is forecasting that lowest temperatures will hold at a balmy 8 to 12 degrees.
On Monday, after a mild, damp and mostly cloudy start, cooler showery conditions will spread from the west along with sunny spells.
It then looks to get “gradually colder throughout next week.”
Alan O’ Reilly from Carlow Weather said that it looks like temperatures are set to drop again from Tuesday, and that there is still uncertainty beyond the midweek point but the risk of a “cool Christmas is increasing.”
With reporting by Jamie McCarron
