Winter conditions will return to much of Britain's uplands this week

Dust off your crampons and dig out your ice axe; winter is on the way back.

Both the Mountain Weather Information Service and the Met Office say much of Britain is in for significant snowfall in the latter half of this week.

And daytime snow will be accompanied by night-time temperatures dropping well below freezing, holding out hope of some freeze-thaw cycles beginning on the Scottish Highland’s mountains.

North-east Scotland will see some flurries on the hills tomorrow, with snow moving south for Thursday, with eastern uplands, the north-west Highlands, the Borders, the northern Pennines and Snowdonia likely to be blanketed in the white stuff.

The MWIS’s forecaster Geoff Monk said there will be persistent cold for a week to ten days. “By this time next week, there will have been considerable snowfall,” he said.

“The ground will become extensively frozen from valleys upwards, with hard frosts in valleys by the weekend. Snow showers will affect primarily eastern and northern mountains, where occasionally these will cluster together to give several hours of persistent snow.”

The Met Office, the official Government forecasting body, is also warning Britons to prepare for some winter weather.

Met Office forecasters issued an advisory notice of heavy snow for parts of the North and East from Thursday onwards, with the potential for localised accumulations of 2 to 5cm of snow inland with 10cm on high ground.
The change will also see the return of overnight frosts as temperatures fall well below freezing in the north by night and struggle to reach much above 3 or 4 °C by day, the Met said.

Met Office chief forecaster Steve Willington said: “The cold weather is clearly on its way this week, but it will take much of this week to reach all of the UK. Snow will be confined to the North and East during the working week, before other parts of England and Wales see snow as we head through the weekend.”