Met Éireann on “high alert” for snow expected next week

Beast from the East 2.0, anyone?

Met Éireann has said they are on "high alert" for snow and icy conditions expected to arrive in Ireland next week. Head of Forecasting Evelyn Cusack told RTÉ's New at One yesterday that the country is likely going to experience some heavy snow from Sunday following the arrival of a Siberian wind over the weekend. The weather, which will come in the form of a freezing wind, will come from the east and north-east on Saturday and will remain until at least Wednesday next week. The front is expected to be so cold that it very likely that many parts of the country will be experiencing snow as the weekend comes to a close, with the eastern coast of the country being the worst affected. Cusack said that Met Éireann is on "high alert" due to the conditions expected by the weather event. "From Wednesday night and for the second half of next week a storm system is pushing in from the Atlantic towards western Europe and that has the potential to cause some very inclement condition," she said. Reports of this weather event first generated a few weeks back as forecasters warned of a Sudden Stratospheric Warming Event, which would shift temperatures dramatically. A similar event called the intense Beast from the East in February 2018, which saw the heaviest snowfalls in Ireland since the early '80s. An SSW event refers to what Met Éireann describes as “the reversal of zonal winds in the Stratosphere from westerly to easterly, along with a rapid jump in temperatures in the winter polar stratosphere that leads to a complete breakdown of the stratospheric polar vortex (SPV)”. Temperatures over the weekend are expected to hit highs of just 2 - 5 degrees in some parts of the country, and lows of -3.