Many of us woke up on Friday morning to a bitter chill in the air, and it seems the cold snap is going to be staying until next week. 

Temperatures plummeted below zero in many counties, with frost visible on cars and grass this morning.

Speaking to Newstalk Breakfast on the conditions and what we can expect over the weekend was Alan O'Reilly from Carlow Weather who shared that while temperatures might increase tomorrow, the wind chill will make it feel colder.

He said: "A good frost last night, down to -5.4 degrees overnight, and below zero for most of the country. But certainly a very cold night, and the first real frost of the season, and the frosty kind of morning will continue, because it will be slow enough to increase today.

"Temperatures will increase tomorrow, especially Saturday, but the wind chill will make it feel a bit cooler, because it will be rather breezy.

"But really, it's Monday and Tuesday [when the cold snap really comes in]. Sunday night is when we see temperatures dropping back, and another cold blast of air moving down.

"But rain moving up into the south, Monday night into Tuesday, will bring temperatures back up in the southern half of the country. But it's certainly where you're going to start to feel the heating bills starting to bite now, unfortunately."

Considering we had such a fabulous summer, Anton Savage asked Mr O'Reilly if we'll be "paying for that" over the next few weeks.

He replied: "[It's] very uncertain. We do have some interesting things happening in the stratosphere.

"There was a warming event in the stratosphere, which is very, very early in the season for that. There are some signals, kind of broad-scale signals really, that we may see some more blocking weather.

"[This] means northern areas, high pressure to the north of Ireland, which increases the chances, just the chances, of cold weather towards the end of the month and into early December. But very uncertain whether that'll actually impact Ireland."

He added that with the super El Nino, people might be expecting warmer, stormier and wetter weather but those of us in Ireland might see the opposite if the weather patterns remain.

As for whether or not people should be planning for a white Christmas, Mr O'Reilly joked that we are "due one" and if he was a betting man, he wouldn't be afraid to think about "having a little flutter".

Main Image: Frost and ice on a car, Pic: Rodger Tamblyn / Alamy Stock Photo