Temperatures could drop as low as -11 degrees this week

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With an Orange ice warning set to come into place this evening, temperatures could drop as low as -11 degrees as the cold snap continues. A meteorologist at Met Éireann has said that temperatures could be the coldest since 2018 as the warning comes in for 19 counties. It is set to come into effect at 6pm with an extremely cold night forecast, with temperatures below -5C. It will be in affect until midday on Thursday and affects Carlow, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Longford, Meath, Offaly, Westmeath, Cavan, Monaghan, Clare, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Tipperary, Galway, Leitrim and Roscommon. A Status Yellow Low Temperature/Ice warning remains in place for the entire country until midday on Friday. Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, meteorologist Joanna Donnelly said that the low temperatures could see a significant drop from the previous few days. "There's not a huge amount of precipitation, no sleet or snow apart from a few showers on coasts, but the temperatures are going significantly colder. "I have the -7 widely in the forecast for overnight tonight, but it's going to be much colder than that in isolated areas, there's -11 showing up on my charts here," Donnelly said. While the temperature hit -7.5 at the Mount Dillon weather station in Co Longford last night, temperatures typically stayed between -4 and -5. "It is not going to get much warmer than that today. Temperatures this morning aren't likely to rise above freezing for much of the country, for much of the morning," she added. "It'll be afternoon before temperatures creep above the zero mark, and they're going to fall pretty quickly ... down again to -4C, so it's a really, really, bitterly cold day out there today," While our climate doesn't usually allow for a white Christmas, Donnelly noted that once there is precipitation there is a chance of snow when temperatures get this low. The lowest temperature on record in Ireland was -19.1C of January 1880, but in more recent years we saw temperatures of -9.7C, during Storm Emma in 2018 and -17.5C on Christmas Day in Co Mayo in 2010.