Temperatures to plummet St Patrick's Day

Guidance has been issued for a return to the severe cold and some localised snowfall this coming St Patrick's weekend.

Ahead of that, we're in for heavy rainfall and strongs winds overnight tonight leading into Wednesday morning and throughout tomorrow.

Winds may well reach gale force across the Midlands with gusts of up to 80kph possible.

This will ease up slightly on Thursday, while Friday will be largely dry and cloudy with some remnant showers in north-central counties.

The outlook shows that temperatures are to drop sharply during the day on Saturday and remain very cold Sunday and Monday at least, with some outbreaks of snow likely in Leinster and possible in south Munster.

It will not be as severe as the what happened ealier this month, around 10 cms is possible, and won't be as widespread as last time.

According to Irish Weather Online (IWO), night temperatures will vary from near -1 C in cloud and snowfall to -7 C during colder clear spells in west and north.

Daytime readings will be about 2 to 4 C at best and could be held lower than that in any outbreaks of snow. Winds will average easterly 50 to 70 km/hr adding quite a chill.

The same or worse conditions will likely affect Britain during the same period.

"The chances of snow will diminish by Monday and the first half of the week is likely to be dry and cold with sunny intervals each day and very sharp frosts (lows -6 to -9 C are possible). Highs will struggle to get much higher than 2 C. Later in the week it may moderate considerably as southerly winds develop, highs may be back closer to normal values (10-12 C) by Thursday of next week," says Peter O'Donnell of IWO.

Peter says that while this cold spell will not have the severity of the last one, may cause some disruption.