Ben Hope (Highland) weather

Headline:

Cold and mainly dry, isolated showers north and east Monday.

This Evening and Tonight:

Dry this evening with a frost. Clouding over during the early hours with a few light showers spreading to Caithness and Sutherland. Southwest remaining clear. Minimum temperature -6 °C.

Monday:

A few light showers across the north and east, otherwise it will be dry. Best of the sunshine in the southwest. A cold day. Maximum temperature 4 °C.

Outlook for Tuesday to Thursday:

Dry for most of Tuesday, light showers in the far north later. Showers in the north on Wednesday, south dry for most of the night. Showers on Thursday, turning wintry.

Cold northerly winds, initially across Scotland are now expected to become dominant across the whole UK in the first week of January. These will bring wintry showers (often of snow) to many coastlines (and areas just inland of these) that are exposed to onshore winds. Subtle day-to-day changes in wind direction from northeast to northwest will change the places most exposed to the showers, but many inland locations across central and southern areas will remain mostly dry but cold. There are likely to be some more coherent bands of rain, sleet and snow working south, and these may bring a risk of more prolonged wintry precipitation affecting some inland areas. Towards the second half of this period, slightly milder conditions will attempt to move in from the west.

Whilst confidence in details is low, by the start of this period the transition back to westerly winds bringing Atlantic weather systems into the UK is expected to be complete, with temperatures most likely recovering to around average. There is perhaps a weak signal for slowly evolving weather patterns to be more favoured than normal, such patterns increase the chances of frost and fog above normal by night.