More turbulent weather is expected during the Three Kings' Day long weekend, and we'll be keeping an eye on the cold and the snow level.

Barcelona2026 has begun very calmly, with cold temperatures and some brief periods of cloud cover. In fact, this morning you need to bundle up, as it's wintry, with frost in many places and fog. But the weather will begin to show signs of change starting today, with a gradual increase in cloud cover. Rain isn't expected anywhere yet, but the first showers will appear on Saturday and will intensify over the next few days. Between Sunday and Tuesday—Three Kings' Day—this precipitation will combine with a mass of very cold air, which will bring snow to lower elevations, although at this time it's difficult to specify exactly how much, how intensely, and at what level this snowfall will occur. What does seem certain is that it will be bitterly wintry during the Three Kings' Day parades.

Friday: more clouds, no rain

We woke up to a cold atmosphere everywhere, with widespread frost even reaching parts of the Costa Brava. It's essential to bundle up before leaving home first thing in the morning. The coldest temperatures were recorded in the Pyrenees and Pre-Pyrenees valleys. Notable lows included -7.6°C in Das (Cerdanya), -6°C in Pont de Suert (Alta Ribagorça), and -5°C in Puigcerdà (Cerdanya), Guixers-Valls (Solsonès), and Sort (Pallars Sobirà). The maximum temperature will rise slightly briefly, but will remain relatively low, with a rather cold and typical feel for this time of year. Once again, there's fog in many plains and valleys, sometimes with frost. Throughout the day, more thin and medium-level clouds will arrive, resulting in partly cloudy to variable skies. Cloud cover will be abundant in the afternoon in the Pyrenees and Pre-Pyrenees. No precipitation is expected at the moment, although a few light showers are possible in the western Pyrenees.

Saturday: first rainfall

The first signs of a significant weather change will arrive on Saturday, when cloud cover will increase considerably, leaving the sky very overcast from midday onwards. The minimum temperature will rise due to the presence of these clouds, but the maximum temperature will fall. In addition, the first precipitation will arrive, still concentrated in the northwest quadrant, with a snow level initially quite high, but which could drop to 1,500 meters below by the afternoon.

Waiting for a cold air mass to arrive with the Three Wise Men

For days now, meteorologists in the western half of the European continent have been closely monitoring every weather model release due to the possibility of snow at low elevations. It's clear that northern countries are more likely to see it, simply because of their geographical location, but it seems certain that we will experience a cold snap arriving from Sunday night and especially from January 5th, with noticeably colder temperatures and widespread frosts inland.

The two main weather models, the European and the American, indicate that this cold front will be accompanied by snow at low elevations in some areas thanks to the presence of the low-pressure system. FrancisBut it is a possibility that cannot yet be confirmed, both because of the days that remain and because of the complexity of predicting snow at low elevations in a Mediterranean country, where many factors come into play.

But to give you an idea, this is the accumulated snow map predicted by the American model for Three Kings' Day morning. As you can see, snow could be present in practically every European country, including France, Italy, parts of Greece and Turkey, and also the Iberian Peninsula. In fact, the latest updates reinforce the possibility of significant snowfall in the central and southeastern parts of the peninsula, which would also affect the regions of Tarragona, Lleida, and the interior of Barcelona. On Sunday night, the snow level would already drop below 300 meters in the western part of Spain, and the maps indicate that during the Three Kings' Day parades, it could snow at very low elevations in the central and southern parts of the country. This is still a very uncertain situation that we will have to continue to clarify and confirm.