No white Christmas for Northern Ireland... unless you are standing on top of a mountain

​Meanwhile the Met Office also said that, unless you happen to be standing at the summit of a mountain, it is unlikely anywhere in Ulster will see a white Christmas.

Storm Pia first began to buffet Northern Ireland on Wednesday night, continuing into Thursday morning, and at time of writing last night it was making its way across Great Britain.

The highest windspeed recorded in Northern Ireland was at Orlock Head in Co Down at 7am on Thursday – a gust of 69mph.

The joint runners-up were Magilligan (Co Londonderry) and Killowen (Co Down), which both registered a gust of 62pmh at 6am.

However, this is a far cry from the scariest windspeed of the day – a gust of 115mph recorded in the Cairngorms, Scotland.

That was recorded high in the mountains though; closer to sea level, the day’s highest gust was 81mph on the Shetland Islands.

Marco Petagna of the Met Office told the News Letter “it’s going to stay blustery” in the coming days.

"It’s a generally windy outlook – probably 40 to 50mph gusts – blustry, but not quite as windy as we’ve seen, but nothing particularly menacing in terms of deep low pressure.”

The question on everyone’s lips at this time of years is of course: will it snow over Christmas?

Unlikely, said Marco, who expects temperatures in Northern Ireland on the 25th to be around 7C to 8C – “not cold enough for snow – though the tops of the Sperrins might get the odd flake”.