Easter weather: Snow showers expected at higher altitudes from Thursday onwards, but no ‘Beast from the East 3’ on the way

CONDITIONS are set to turn colder this Easter weekend, but don’t panic – it’s not another ‘Beast from the East’.

Snow and sleet showers are only predicted to affect higher altitude areas across Scotland as the weather becomes more unsettled.

It’s set to be colder than average, with some parts of the country seeing overnight frost.

Showers and longer spells of rain, with some outbreaks of sunshine, will be seen throughout the weekend.

Met Office Chief Meteorologist Frank Saunders said: “It is important to point out that we are not expecting anything on the scale of the last two spells of unusually cold weather which brought significant and disruptive snowfall.

“Throughout the Easter weekend it will stay unsettled with showers or longer outbreaks of rain for most. There will be some sunshine at times as well though, with the best of any drier and brighter weather expected across the northwest”.

Channel 4 weather forecaster Liam Dutton also today dismissed news reports of a third ‘Beast from the East’ heading the UK’s way, tweeting: “Stop writing it, because it’s not going to happen. Whilst it’ll still turn colder later this week, it’s no beast, with snow mostly over hills in the north.”

While the weather is not set to be as bad as the horrendous conditions that engulfed the country at the start of the month, Scotland’s Transport Minister Humza Yousaf said that he’d discussed the forecast with the Met Office and Winter Resilience team.

Gritting teams will be out across Scotland’s road networks and drivers are urged to check their journey before they head off.

Our gritter teams will (and have been) out across the network.

We're anticipating higher than usual volumes of traffic on Thur/Fri for Easter weekend getaway. Also, expect trunk road leading to ski resorts to be particularly busy.

As always follow @trafficscotland for updates

— Humza Yousaf (@HumzaYousaf) March 27, 2018