What is freezing rain and should we be worried in Scotland?

You may have read about the risk of freezing rain, but should we be worried about this in Scotland?

Cold air from Scandinavia has settled over Scotland in the last week and continues to flow in over the weekend.

On Friday night, a weather front will move in from the west, bringing rain to the west coast and Hebrides and a risk of some snow over higher parts of Ayrshire, Lanarkshire, Borders, and Midlothian. This shouldn’t amount to too much and is likely to turn back to rain in the early hours of Saturday.

Showery rain and sleet will fall at low levels in central and southern Scotland on Friday night, but with this falling onto the cold ground there’s a small risk that some spots may see freezing rain and therefore a risk of some ice developing.

What is freezing rain?

Red berries frozen in a freezing rain storm. Met Office

Freezing rain is quite rare and only occurs when the air above is too warm for snow, but the ground is still cold, which means the rain that falls onto it turns quickly to ice.

It can produce striking effects when the raindrop spreads out momentarily across a surface before it freezes, encasing things in a layer of clear ice.

The unusally heavy weight of the ice can sometimes bring down power lines or trees – and it can turn paths and roads into ice rinks.

Will we get snow this weekend?

There’s a possibility that on Saturday morning a few higher locations south of the central belt may wake to some lying snow on the grass, along with the risk of ice.

Throughout the weekend the weather for most of the country is cold with rain showers affecting the east of the country with the best of any cloud break in the north west – although even here that will be quite limited.

The eastern end of the Grampians will see spells of snow throughout the day – particularly in the morning. It will feel quite raw in the east on Saturday with a brisk onshore wind, cloud and showers.

Daytime highs on Saturday and Sunday will be around 5C for most places, but next week we’ll see the milder air in the Atlantic making a proper push east with temperatures in some areas possibly reaching 13C by Thursday.