How is Christmas Eve weather described and how does it set the mood for the setting

The weather is described as cold and bleak.... the atmosphere is dingy and fog covered, which creates a mood of mystery foreshadowing the dark and foreboding evening to come.

"It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy withal..."

The city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already -- it had not been light all day: and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that Nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.