Temperatures plummet to minus 5C - but will jump at weekend and higher to 15C next week as sun returns
Britain woke up to another cold and frosty morning today as temperatures fell to -5C ahead of a gradual warming up through the weekend and into next week.
Britain woke up to another cold and frosty morning today as temperatures fell to -5C ahead of a gradual warming up through the weekend and into next week.
Daytime highs will reach 9C (48F) today then 10C (50F) or 11C (52F) every day from tomorrow until Tuesday, while nights will remain sub-zero in some places.
But conditions will be mostly settled, and milder weather is set to return midway through next week with 15C (59F) on Wednesday and 16C (61F) on Thursday.
It comes after a very cold start to today which saw Oxfordshire fall to -5C (23F) and a temperature of -4C (25F) in Bedfordshire, Dorset, Surrey, Somerset and Hampshire.
Parts of Wales including Powys and Conwy had similar lows, while London dropped to -3C (27F) at Northolt overnight – as did Gatwick Airport and Southampton.
Sunny spells will follow in the South later today, but it will be cloudier further north with some places seeing scattered showers which will be wintry over high ground.
The showers will gradually spread southwards through the morning, although it will be turning drier and brighter in Northern Ireland and western Scotland.
Mist and frost covers the landscape at Winter Hill Golf Club near Cookham in Berkshire today
Donkeys out on a cold and frosty morning at sunrise in Dunsden, Oxfordshire, today
Met Office meteorologist Honor Criswick said today: Its another cold and quite frosty start across parts of the South and South East - thats where we saw the clearest of skies overnight.
‘More cloud elsewhere but it is still going to be a chilly start and a chilly day ahead too.
Still plenty of showers feeding in from the North Sea coasts, the old one could be heavy - and still bringing in some snow across hills for the Scottish Highlands, the Pennines even later on across parts of the Welsh Hills.
‘In between those showers though plenty of bright and sunny spells. Lighter winds than what we had earlier in the week so its not going to be feeling quite as chilly, but temperatures are still widely just below average for the time of year. Highs of around 8C to 9C.’
Any rain will gradually ease this evening to leave a mostly dry night, which will turn chilly again underneath the clearest skies along with some frost and fog patches.
Ms Criswick said: ‘Through the course of the evening well see showers largely ease away, becoming largely confined to North Sea coasts once again and its going to be another cold and frosty night ahead.
‘But this time we see a bit of a flip - the clearest of skies across Scotland, Northern Ireland, northern parts of England and Wales too - so quite a widespread frost here.
‘And we could still see some patchy frost across central and southern parts but a bit more cloud compared to what we saw last night.’
Tomorrow will see any early mist and fog soon clear to leave a drier day compared to today with a mixture of sunny spells and light showers as well as light winds.
Ms Criswick said it would be a ‘cold start’ with some showers but ‘nowhere near as many as what weve seen earlier in the week’.
She continued: ‘Theyre going to be largely isolated and many are actually going to see a fine day ahead. Some sunshine in the morning but turning cloudier as we head through into the afternoon.
‘Still the odd shower skirting northern coasts of Scotland, perhaps a few more blue skies across parts of East Anglia, Sussex and Kent and temperatures fairly similar - perhaps a notch higher in some places, highs of around 9C to 10C.’
It will then be cloudier on Sunday and Monday with some showers mixed with brighter interludes, then brighter but breezier on Tuesday with plenty of sunny spells.
‘We have high pressure sticking around on Sunday so still once again largely dry,’ Ms Criswick said. ‘But we do still remain in this cold pool of air, so it is going to be remaining fairly chilly still with a chance of some patchy frost.’
She said an area of high pressure would shift eastwards into next week, which allows a change in wind direction.
Ms Criswick added: ‘Rather than getting our winds from the north, we start to see a bit more of a southerly flow.
‘So something milder coming in as we head into next week, but towards the end of the week that might just mean a chance of a bit more cloud and possibly some rain.’
A couple shelter under an umbrella as a hail storm falls in London yesterday afternoon
Horses on the snowy gallops at the Cheltenham Festival in Gloucestershire on Wednesday
It comes after the Met Office issued a yellow ice warning until yesterday morning in 10 areas of England including Yorkshire, Lancashire, Northumberland and Derbyshire.
Snow showers have fallen in several places this week including the Southern Uplands, Shropshire Hills and the Cotswolds - as well as at the Cheltenham Festival.
And that followed the UK enjoying its warmest days of 2025 so far last weekend, as parts of England got up to 19.1C (66.4F) on Saturday and 19.7C (67.5F) on Sunday.
Cheltenham had highs of 18C (64F) on Sunday, but snow coated the racecourse on Wednesday for what is often called a fools spring when a period of warm weather is quickly followed by a cold snap, which sometimes happens in March and April.