Brits are set to face freezing temperatures with a “beast from the east” Arctic blast bringing -4 conditions and snow flurries up and down the country.
After a milder week with the mercury rising during the day widespread freezing temperatures are set to hit in mid March.
Brits will need to wrap up warm as a 'snowbomb' is expected to bring as much as four inches of snow an hour for parts of central and northern Scotland, according to weather maps for March 10.
There will also be flurries the length of the country continuing for over a week with more than 25 centimetres falling on March 17, as the cold snap sweeps in from Scandinavia and across the North Sea in what is dubbed the “beast from the east”.
It will also be bitterly cold with -5C temperatures on March 10 in Scotland and it will drop below zero for the whole country.
Polar winds are currently causing icy temperatures across Eastern Europe which is making conditions worse for the thousands of refugees who are fleeing Ukraine following the Russian invasion.
BBC weather forecaster Chris Fawkes said: “Looking at the weather charts for next week and the area of high pressure starts to slip across Scandinavia and into west Russia.
“What happens is that we start to develop easterly winds so the should be a fair amount of dry weather and sunshine but cold winds will develop as the week goes by.”
Before that looking to the end of this week it is set to be milder and wet.
Met Office forecaster Clare Nasir, looking at Thursday, said: " A windy start to the day across eastern Scotland from clearer skies across Shetland, even some sunshine before we see some clouds and rain.
"Patchy rain for eastern Scotland and then this band of persistent rain particularly on the upfloats of the higher ground.
"By this point you can see some drier weather coming in across the south east of Northern Ireland, west Wales, the west country eventually seeing even some brighter weather and certainly some slices of sunshine for the south east of England.
"This will migrate to East Anglia during the afternoon. So this band of rain (from the north west) is fairly slow moving.”
UK forecast for the next 5 days
Today:
Largely cloudy, with outbreaks of rain in many western parts, slowly moving east to be replaced by clearer skies already in far west. Some sunny breaks in eastern, especially southeastern parts. Windy at first in the north. Mild, especially southeast.
Tonight:
Rain continuing to slowly move east, clearer skies following with a few showers for western coasts. Light winds, frosty under clearing skies with chance of patchy freezing fog by dawn.
Friday:
Cloudy with further rain for many eastern areas, sunny spells and isolated showers in the west. Showers possibly heavy for a time in the southwest. Light and variable winds.
Outlook for Saturday to Monday:
Further rain across central and eastern areas. Dry, elsewhere with some sunshine. Drier conditions developing more widely on Sunday and Monday. Colder than recently, with patchy overnight frost.
