Europe experienced a significant change in weather after Christmas, when the continent was dominated by a strong so-called Rex’s block. It later moved to the west, which allowed the arctic cold air to spread over a large part of Europe in the last week of 2025. Thus, the cooling mainly affected eastern, central (Slovakia) and southern Europe, where it brought snow and frosty conditions even before New Year’s Evewrites the website.
At the beginning of 2026, however, the situation will change again. This time, the new surge of Arctic air will mainly affect Western Europe. The weather over the Atlantic and Europe again becomes dynamic and gradual, forming at the turn of the year a pronounced dipole – with cooler weather in the west and warmer conditions in the east, with heavy snow and rain also expected.
Animations of forecasts for the next few days are shown to experts rapidly changing weather patterns over Europe, with frequent alternating cold and warm waves and the passage of frontal systems. Although this week will bring significant cooling, a shift of cold air further west is possible after the weekend if a trough deepens again over the North Atlantic. The winter dynamics are clearly returning to Europe.
The medium-term outlook suggests that this pattern could continue into the next week. Cold weather will persist over western Europe, while warmer weather will resume over central (Slovakia) and eastern Europe southwest flow. This will bring significant warming and large amounts of moisture, especially to the Balkans and Eastern Europe.
Temperature contrasts will be significant – while in the west the weather will remain 6 to 12 °C cooler than normal, in the east temperatures may rise up to 15 °C above average, with daily maximums of 10 to 15 °C, sometimes even more. Along with the heat, however, abundant rain will return, especially on the southern slopes of the Alps, in the Dinarides and the Apennines, where totals can reach 150 to 300 mm per week. Significant precipitation is also expected in Portugal, parts of Spain and Morocco.
