Thundery showers pile in from the Atlantic threatening flooding across Portugal, Spain, France and Italy.

Autumn has arrived with a vengeance across much of Europe. The weather is fairly quiet in the east right now, but it is unusually cold.

As is often the case at this time of year, the choice of weather is either cool and dry or wet and mild. Much of Western Europe is feeling the latter right now.

We currently have areas of low pressure rolling in from the Atlantic in a good westerly flow. These are feeding bands of cloud and rain across the Iberian Peninsula through France, into Italy and the Balkans.

Santander in northern Spain had 85mm of rain in the 24 hour period up to 0600GMT on Sunday. That’s over half the November average of 135mm for the entire month.

Not far away, Embrun in southern France had 80mm of rain throughout Saturday. It was even wetter across Italy and the Balkans.

The Italian city of Arezzo was hit by 101mm of rain in 24 hours. Meanwhile Nova Gorica in Slovenia notched up 100mm.

There was some snowfall too over the Alps and the surrounding higher ground. Monte Cimone which is the highest mountain in the northern Apennines of Italy, had a covering of around 10cm of snow.

A level 1 warning remains in place across western Italy and the eastern Adriatic, mainly for heavy rain or snow, but also the possibilities of tornadoes, and severe wind gusts.

The heavy rain extends north into much of Scandinavia. Kristiansand in Norway had 84mm of rain on Saturday.

Further west, it has actually been relatively dry across the British Isles. Here northerly winds made for a chilly but breezy bonfire night on Saturday. There were a few showers along the North Sea coast but most parts had a fine evening, albeit one which benefited from the addition of woolly hats and scarves.

The need to keep warm is even greater further east. High pressure dominates the weather across western Russia, and while there has been some snow in recent days here, that has now eased.

The clearing skies have left temperatures struggling to reach minus 3C in Moscow. That is more like the average night time low here. Milder weather will return this week as snow moves in from the Baltic States.