UK weather forecast: Freezing temperatures expected this weekend as cold snap lingers

The climbing mercury is particularly welcome news in the NHS as hospitals struggle under winter strain

This week’s cold weather is likely to continue over the coming days, in welcome news for hospitals struggling with a surge of winter patients.

Friday morning saw a significant cold snap, with temperatures as low as -7C in some places.

Temperatures are expected to remain below zero on Friday night, falling as low as -4C or -5C in some parts of the country.

Conditions on Saturday will still be chilly but there is not going to be such a widespread frost, Met Office forecasters are predicting.

A combination of the cold snap, the onset of the winter flu season and people still stuck in hospital from the skeleton-staffed Christmas period will cause havoc for the NHS over the coming days, the president of the Society for Acute Medicine has said.

“Influenza is here and is already impacting the NHS and, with colder weather starting to set in, this will further stress already stretched services,” Nick Scriven told The Guardian.

“I and many colleagues across the country are anticipating mayhem this weekend as temperatures drop, but it will come as no surprise to us.

“Within the last week I have had colleagues warning of emergency departments and intensive care units being full, and that will only worsen in the coming weeks.”

John West, a Met Office forecaster, said the temperatures would gradually increase over the weekend.

“It is probably going to be getting less cold through the weekend. We are getting some milder air off the Atlantic which is driving the weather across the UK and will see temperatures recovering slightly.

“Tomorrow morning it is likely to be another cold one but we are not expecting such a widespread frost. There will be a few pockets of frost and maybe even some freezing fog.”

Instead of bitter winter temperatures, the next challenging weather period will be strong winds and rain which are likely to hit Scotland and northern England at the start of next week.

Driven by an area of low pressure currently building out in the Atlantic, the Met Office has issued as yellow warning for wind.

“This will bring a period of unsettled wet and quite windy weather,” Mr West said.

“It’s likely we could see some snow in any of the more unsettled interludes, especially in Scotland and northern England over the hills on Monday and Tuesday.

“We could see some showers driving through Monday to Tuesday which could be wintry in nature.”

But he downplayed reports of another “Beast from the East” ploughing through Britain this month.

Although there has been some stratospheric warming and the El Nino phenomenon – which tend to increase the likelihood of colder weather – it did not look like the UK would see “any significant snow events”, Mr West said.