The UK faces a -15C snow blast with a Beast from the East hitting for the first time since 2018. WXCharts have released a new graphic showing the huge wall of icy conditions come careening over Scandinavia, through Europe, and blasting across the UK.
The ‘Beast from the East’ is a phrase used to describe cold and wintry conditions in the UK as a result of easterly winds from the near continent. When pressure is high over Scandinavia, the UK tends to experience a polar continental air mass.
When this happens in winter, cold air is drawn in from the Eurasian landmass, bringing the cold and wintry conditions that give rise to the ‘Beast from the East’ moniker. It last hit back in 2018, sparking weeks of chaos – and even resulting in deaths.
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Nicola Maxey, spokesperson for the Met Office, said: “At the moment the most likely scenario for the first part of February is for fairly changeable and unsettled and towards the middle of the month there does appear to be potential for some colder spells. But it’s really not possible to look that far into the future and say if that involves snow, or whether the temperatures will be just a little below average or worse than that.
“When you’re looking at long range forecast the chaotic nature of the atmosphere comes into play so smaller events over the Atlantic have the potential to have significant impact on the weather here in several days time. While you can talk about the general feel of the forecast with some accuracy looking that far ahead it’s harder to come up with local detail, like you’d expect in shorter range forecast. There’s certainly the potential for some colder spells as we go through February but at the moment it’s still too far off to give detail.”
Describing the Beast from the East, the Met Office said: “The air is inherently very cold and dry and if it reaches southern Britain, with a short sea track over the English Channel, the weather is characterised by clear skies and severe frost.
“With a longer sea track over the North Sea, the air becomes unstable and moisture is added, giving rise to showers of rain or snow, especially near the east coast of Britain. The UK’s lowest temperatures usually occur in this air mass, lower than minus 10 °C at night, and sometimes remaining below freezing all day.”