The current cold spell in Europe will persist this week as high pressure continues to stagnate over western Russia. The cold weather is linked to a weak, split polar vortex in the stratosphere, which allowed high pressure to build across Greenland last week. This in turn led to Arctic air flooding south across the UK on northerly winds. The polar vortex is due to strengthen, eventually helping to end the cold spell with low pressure to the west of the UK becoming dominant.
Much of western and central Europe, including the UK, will stay consistently around 5C below typical values for this time of year, with many places struggling to rise above freezing even during the daytime. Change is on the horizon, however, as low pressure systems begin to encroach into Europe towards the weekend. Latest forecasts show temperatures in western Europe returning to average by the start of next week, though in central and northern Europe extreme cold will persist a little longer. In contrast, Spain, which has experienced a record-breaking warm and dry autumn, will finally have some recognisably wintry temperatures.
