Temperatures set to drop to minus 6C overnight in Northern Ireland over coming days

That is according to the latest forecast from the Met Office, which said that lowest temperatures seen in Northern Ireland today was –2.1C.

That reading was recorded at two sites: Armagh city at 4.55am, and Thomastown in Fermanagh at 3.30am.

Snow fell in parts of Co Antrim and Co Londonderry during late afternoon.

Meanwhile the highest temperature in Northern Ireland as of mid-afternoon today was 5.4C, which had been recorded at the Giant’s Causeway just before 9am.

Met Office forecaster Craig Snell said that’s about the highest temperature the Province will see all week.

“Overall it’s going to be a cold week really,” he said.

"The cold air is in place now, and it’s really going to stay over your part of the world throughout the rest of the working week at least.”

A snow-and-ice warning is in effect until 11am tomorrow morning, with temperatures likely to fall to –3C or so, and “people could wake up tomorrow morning to a slight covering of snow in places”, but this is likely to be mainly in the north and west.

Tomorrow will be “a mixture of a lot of sunshine and scattered showers”.

"During the course of the day I think the showers will be a bit more of a mix of rain, sleet and snow. I think any snow will really struggle to settle.

"People might continue to see some flakes, particularly across the north and west, but I imagine they probably won’t cause too much disruption during the day.”

At night from Tuesday to Wednesday temperatures are likely to get down to –6C, followed by a “cold, crisp, generally sunny day on Wednesday, with still a risk of a few flurries on the north coast”.

Overnight from Wednesday to Thursday –6C remains a possibility, and the day is likely to be fairly dry.

By Friday temperatures “won’t be anywhere near as cold – daytime temperatures will possibly be up to about 7C, and night-time only just falling below freezing”.

And the weekend looks “fairly cloudy” with spots of rain.

Temperatures in the day are expected to be “hovering between about 7– 9C, and at night we’ll probably have lost the frost risk”.

In recent days snow has gripped parts of the Republic of Ireland, particularly the west, with schools closed and tens of thousands of homes without power.

As to why the same conditions were not replicated in Northern Ireland, even though it is more northerly, he said: “It’s all down to the position of the weather front. It was just the fact that the heaviest and most prolonged precipitation didn’t quite get as far north as yourselves.

"It’s the same kind of thing for the rest of the British Isles really – northern England saw the main brunt of the snow where you’d kind of assume Scotland would have seen the snowiest weather. The front really just kind of stalled across parts of the Republic of Ireland, Wales and northern England.”