UK weather forecast: Met Office warns of 'enhanced risk of snow' as temperatures expected to plummet in coming days

Colder days and widespread frost forecast

This month could see an “enhanced risk of snow” in the UK, the Met Office has forecast, with temperatures expected to plunge over the coming days.

Britain’s national weather service has predicted colder days will follow a mild weekend, with “a risk of snow” over northern hills which could occasionally move to lower levels.

“Temperatures will be close to average at first, but brief milder spells are still possible,” the Met Office said on its website.

“Despite this, it is likely to turn colder towards the end of this period with more widespread frost.”

It comes as Britain experiences the same weather patterns which brought last year’s Beast from the East and could potentially cause a repeat of the snowfall that brought the country to a standstill.

“The thing that caused the Beast from the East last year was a sudden stratospheric warming,” Met Office spokesman Richard Miles told The Independent.

“We have had one of those stratospheric warnings already, and the effects of that would be seen two weeks hence, so around the end of this month is when we would expect the effects of that coming through to our weather.”

He said “we are seeing a higher chance of colder weather”.

Extreme weather resulting from a mixture of the Beast from the East and Storm Emma early last year caused widespread travel disruption and 17 deaths.

Looking towards the end of the month and the beginning of February, the Met Office said “there is an increased likelihood of cold weather becoming established across all of the UK”.

It said: “This would bring an enhanced risk of snow and more widespread frost, particularly across northern parts.

“However, there is uncertainty over the extent of the cold weather and it is still possible that some milder and wetter interludes will intersperse this generally cold period, especially in the south.”