There were strong temperature contrasts across Europe over the past few days, with parts of the Mediterranean basking in unusual warmth while a blast of cold air from Siberia brought freezing conditions to northern parts of mainland Europe.
Greece and southern Italy saw temperatures peaking at 25C or 26C on Friday, around 7 degrees above the November average. Meanwhile, Poland, the Czech Republic and parts of Germany were up to 10 degrees colder than average over the weekend, with the temperatures remaining widely below zero through the day and dropping below -10C in places overnight. The warmth experienced by the Mediterranean transferred north-eastwards later in the weekend, across the Black Sea into southern and eastern Ukraine and south-west Russia. Temperatures across these regions have reached the low 20s Celsius in places, while northern and western parts of Ukraine are under the influence of the colder airmass, which had meant that they saw temperatures widely remaining below freezing.
Over the next few days, warm air will continue to push northwards across the Black Sea at times. This will bring some rain and brisk winds, but the temperature contrasts should become much less marked than they have been. Meanwhile, much of the Mediterranean will see cooler and increasingly unsettled conditions, with very strong winds and heavy rain likely in places. Parts of Italy, Croatia and Montenegro have been placed under weather warnings early this week, with winds expected to reach 50-60mph, and areas surrounding the Adriatic Sea could see over 60mm of rainfall.
Stormy onshore winds of more than 70mph and sea swells reaching 12-15ft (3.5-4.5 metres) will hit the Pacific Northwest coastline of the USA and Canada, as a deep low-pressure system moves in during the middle part of this week. The entire coastline between Anchorage and Seattle could also see cumulative rainfall totals exceeding 100mm between Tuesday and Thursday, affecting around 2 million people across the region. Additionally, the Coast Mountains in British Columbia, Canada, will see over a metre of snowfall over the same two days.
