The cold weather will continue over the weekend and into early next week with frosty nights, but there’s unsettled weather promised later next week by Met Eireann.

Today will be a cold and very breezy day with some showery falls of sleet and snow.

Met Eireann has issued a status yellow snow-ice warning for Leinster, Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal until 10.00 this morning.

Accumulations of between 1 and 3cm of snow are possible locally.

These sleet and snow showers will affect mostly Ulster and Leinster for a time in the morning but are promised to turn to rain by lunchtime.

Bright or sunny spells are forecast for the afternoon along with scattered showers of rain or hail. Top temperatures will reach 5 or 8 degrees but it will feel colder due to a stiff north to northeast wind.

Tonight will be a cold night with a moderate northerly breeze.

Many places are to remain dry, as showers will be confined to coastal areas of the west, the north and possibly a few eastern coastal fringes.

Temperatures are to drop to around zero and Met Eireann has forecast a sharp frost to develop.

There will be some opportunities for drying and spraying this weekend but these will revert back to being poor conditions next week.

Looking to tomorrow, Saturday, it’s promised to be a cold, bright and dry day in many areas, with good sunshine and moderate northwest to north winds.

While most places will be dry on Saturday, some rain or hail showers are likely in northern and northwestern counties and along parts of the west coast.

Met Eireann has said that rainfall for the next seven days will be lower than normal in most areas though likely to be a bit above in some coastal fringes.

Afternoon temperatures will range between 5 and 8 degrees.

Saturday night will be frosty with some icy patches on Saturday night as temperatures drop to 0 to minus 2 degrees and some fog is possible also.

Later in the night cloud will thicken in western areas, according to Met Eireann.

Sunday will be another cold day and there will be a frosty start in eastern areas.

Cloudy conditions with rain are promised to develop quickly in western counties Sunday morning and will gradually spread eastwards in the afternoon.

This rain will turn to sleet or wet snow in parts of Ulster and Leinster later in the day and afternoon highs will range between 3 or 4 degrees in eastern areas and 7 or 8 degrees in western counties.

Rain, sleet and snow is forecast to turn more showery overnight with frost in places.

Current indications for next week suggest that Monday will be cold but bright with some scattered wintry showers.

It will be dry but very frosty on Monday night and looking to Tuesday, a band of rain will move eastwards, Met Eireann forecasts.

It looks to be very unsettled through the middle of next week however, it won’t be as cold.

FROST MET EIREANN SNOW WEATHER