After weeks of bone-chilling temperatures, travel chaos and slippery surfaces, it looks like the cold snap in Scotland could be coming to an end.
December saw record-breaking lows of -15.7 degrees in Braemar, with much of the country being blanketed in snow and ice for days at a time.
But now, due to a jet stream of milder air coming in from North America, it appears as though the extreme cold is over and January's weather will be more typical - very wet and windy, according to the Met Office.
This week, the weather sweeping towards the UK will originate from the south and west rather than east, bringing rain instead of snow.
It comes as the Met Office rebuffed claims of another Beast from the East storm hitting the UK, with meteorologist Diane Stroud telling the Mirror: "The weather is firmly from the south and west for the rest of the week.
"There is no Beast from the East."
The Met Office also said that the current mild air arriving from the Atlantic will bring "higher than average" temperatures this week, which means breaking above freezing for parts of northern Scotland.
But rain is still very much on the way for most of the UK. Forecasters said that cold air outbreaks across North America and the Pacific, both recent and upcoming, are likely to affect North Atlantic jet streams in a similar fashion in the coming days.
This means a continued wet and windy outlook for the UK, at least through the first part of January, with weather systems likely to impact the UK from the west.
Weather in the US often has the potential to affect our own, as we saw in the run-up to Christmas, where it reached a chilling -48C across the pond.
That cold snap has now come to an end, and the contrast in temperature is what's been helping to invigorate the jet stream - or the "driving force" for much of the UK's weather.
Met Office Deputy Chief Meteorologist Rebekah Sherwin said: "The temperature drop in North America before the end of 2022 was the underlying cause of our wet and windy weather in the run-up to New Year.
"The conditions across the Atlantic served to strengthen the jet stream and help send low pressure systems and weather fronts towards the UK, resulting in the recent unsettled conditions.
"Those incredibly low temperatures have now passed in North America and there will not be any direct impacts from that period of weather on the UK in terms of any potential snowfall events."
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