Dreaming of a white... Easter?

Forecasters warn holiday could bring fresh Siberian blast – and MORE snow

AFTER one false start, most of us thought spring had finally arrived.

But it seems Mother Nature has other ideas.

A fresh burst of bitter Siberian air looks set to deliver yet more snow – and Britain’s first white Easter in five years.

Temperatures could drop as low as minus 9C (16F) in some areas as a new icy blast arrives in time for the holiday weekend. Some long-range forecasters are also predicting a further bout of cold weather will strike in mid-April.

It comes after the country suffered some of the coldest March days on record, and the worst snowstorms in decades.

The icy weather is being caused by the break-up of the polar vortex, a large area of cold air that normally sits over the North Pole.

A change in the polar jet stream in February triggered a phenomenon known as ‘ sudden stratospheric warming’.

This has caused cold winds to be pushed over northern Europe and the US for the past two months.

One BBC forecaster said computer models suggested that we were going to have a blast of cold Arctic air with winds coming in from the north. ‘In this situation we do tend to get snow across northern Britain and there could even be wintry showers further south as well,’ he explained.

‘That’s one suggestion. Other computer models were showing that actually some of the cold air could be coming in from Scandinavia and parts of Russia which is almost a Beast from the East, not quite, let’s call it a Beast from the North East. Now this could still wobble a little bit, but one thing we are getting increasingly confident about is that the air is not going to be coming from the south, so get ready for a potentially chilly Easter.’

Forecasters from The Weather Channel say we are on course for a chill well into April, with temperatures likely to remain slightly below normal. The cold weather is being made worse by an area of high pressure over Scandinavia, which is pushing bitter Siberian winds in our direction.

The places most likely to get snow over the Easter weekend are higher parts of the North East, the East Midlands and east Scotland, according to forecasters.

However, there could be wintry showers further south as well.

It would be the first white Easter since 2013, when Arctic weather produced the coldest Easter Sunday on record. Before then, the last white Easter was in 2010, the year of another bitterly cold winter.

Met Office forecaster Grahame Madge said yesterday: ‘There is an increasingly strong likelihood of very cold weather returning for Easter. Towards the end of next week things will turn much colder than is normal for this time of year. That means freezing conditions, which could well include snow over parts of the UK.

‘We have an area of high pressure over Scandinavia which is causing cold, Siberian winds to be pushed in our direction.

‘We have had snow at Easter twice since 2010, so it is not unheard of to get snow in spring’.

The freezing conditions raise the prospect of travel chaos during the big Easter getaway.

In recent months roads have been repeatedly shut off by snow, and icy conditions have led to the cancellation of hundreds of flights and train journeys.

The Met Office’s long- range weather forecast states: ‘Colder than average conditions are likely to prevail overall in April. Any milder, wetter and windier spells are likely to be relatively short lived.’