Issued: 0530hrs Friday 3rd January 2020
Duty forecaster: Claire Darbinyan

High pressure brings settled conditions to SW Europe while lower pressure elsewhere keeps things more mixed


Friday
A fair but mostly dry for Portugal and Spain with a few light showers to the far northwest. A fair and dry day for the Balearics, Corsica and Sardinia. A dry day for Italy with some cloud to the north. Brighter to the south. A mostly dry day too for Greece with good spells of sunshine after early rain clears to the south. Winds ease for southern Turkey and Cyprus though heavy rain continues here.
Cloudy for France with showery outbreaks of rain spreading from the northwest. Outbreaks of rain, some of them heavy, affect the Low Countries, Germany and northern Poland. Staying mostly dry but with increasing cloud coverage in Switzerland, Austria and the Czech Republic. Just the odd shower or two here. Dry and bright for Slovakia and Hungary.
A band of rain clears to the southeast from Denmark leaving a mixture of sunny spells and blustery showers. A dry, bright start for the Baltic States but rain arrives from the west later. A band of rain sweeps across southern Sweden and Finland - this turns to snow over northern Finland. Sleet and snow continue to affect western parts of Norway. Staying breezy across Scandinavia.

Saturday
A band of cloud clears to the south from southern Spain and Portugal to leave a dry and sunny day across Iberia. Cloud and isolated showers also clear south from the Balearic Islands, Corsica, Sardinia and Italy to leave dry and fine conditions here too. A sunny and dry day for Greece and western Turkey while heavy outbreaks of rain start to ease over eastern Turkey and Cyprus.
A mostly dry and fair day for France as early rain clears to the east and south. Cloudy for the Low Countries with some showers affecting the Netherlands. A band of showery rain clears to the south from Germany and Poland before a band of heavy rain arrives to the north. This increasingly turns to snow across central and southern Poland. Early showers ease for Switzerland while Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary see wintry showers persist throughout the day.
A band of showery rain sweeps south across Denmark leaving a cool, dry and bright end to the day. Bands of rain, sleet and snow sweep eastward over the Baltic States with some spells of sunshine in between. Sunny spells and snow showers for Finland. Early sleet and snow clears southeastern Sweden to leave a dry and bright day for much of the country while western parts of Norway continue to be affecting by strong winds and snow.