Back to school and work as winter break ends; First official frost of 2024 recorded

The winter break is officially over, and thousands of children and grownups in the Netherlands will head back to school and work today. The weather is expected to be cold but sunny and dry, so traffic shouldn’t be too bad. The first official frost day of the year was recorded in De Bilt on Sunday, according to Weeronline.

Monday started cloudy, with some light snow possible in the south, according to Weeronline. The rest of the day will be sunny and dry, with maximums ranging between -2 and 1 degrees Celsius.

The rest of the week will be abundantly sunny and very cold. Daytime temperatures will range around freezing, and moderate frost is expected overnight. Weeronline predicts higher temperatures from Thursday.

The sunny and dry weather means that the first official working day of the year shouldn’t lead to extreme traffic jams on Monday. Rijkswaterstaat and ANWB expect an average morning rush hour, with the most traffic jams in Zuid-Holland and Noord-Brabant. At 7:26 a.m., the ANWB reported 42 traffic jams covering 200 kilometers of Dutch roads.

The first official frost day of the year was recorded at the national weather station in De Bilt on Sunday, Weeronline reported. Temperatures dipped below freezing in De Bilt - considered the average for the Netherlands - late on Sunday afternoon. The previous official frost day was on December 7.

The cold weather expected in the coming days is great news for ice skating enthusiasts. According to Weeronline, skating on natural ice will almost certainly be possible on well-maintained natural ice rinks this week.