People dreaming of a white Christmas might be left disappointed this year as a top meteorologist has revealed the weather will turn dry and mild from this week.

The Met Office released its long-term weather forecast for the festive period and there is no mention of snow for anywhere in the UK.

Instead, forecasters predict some milder and calmer spells, with temperatures pushed into double figures in some places this Saturday and Sunday.

The news is very welcomed in parts of Scotland and England, which were battered by heavy snow, strong gusts of wind and torrential rain over the last two weeks.

It comes after Storm Arwen wreaked havoc in the country with 100mph winds in late November, resulting in three people being killed by toppled trees.

But Jim Dale, senior meteorologist for British Weather Services, told Metro.co.uk that the UK will not experience any new storms by the end of 2021, and instead people ‘will see the other side of the coin’.

He said: ‘The awful weather was kind of due. We had a pretty sedate autumn to say the least with the lack of rainfall.

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‘Then we saw the two storms that came along – one at the very end of autumn and the one last week – but there is change coming up.

‘What you are going to find right in the run-up to the holidays and maybe Christmas itself is high pressure on the scene.

‘The weather is going to revert back to being dry, sedate, quiet, anything but seasonal.

‘The next few days will be mild and we can already feel it today. There is not going to be a lot happening.’

The milder weather will be here to stay for a few days as the rest of this week looks ‘widely dry, settled, and often rather cloudy period with light winds’.

But Met Office’s meteorologist Alexander Deakin revealed today that there is an ‘increasing’ chance of seeing some ‘thick and fairly stubborn’ fog patches due to an area of high pressure.

From Friday, December 17, to Sunday, December 26, high pressure, already across southern areas, is expected to build further north, pushing the wind and rain away from all areas apart from far north-west.

The Met Office confirmed that any rain will be light, giving a much drier second half to December for all.

In the lead-up to the festivities, it is likely the weather will turn ‘progressively colder’.

Mr Dale highlighted that the ‘odds are against’ a snowy Christmas but that ‘the shooting match’ is not over.

Instead, he said that the travelling hazards commuters should keep in mind will be fog and ice.

The expert explained: ‘We are at the edge of Europe and we get the maritime influence, so even when you have really cold weather in Scandinavia and parts of Russia, we get just the crumbs of it.

‘But right on the run-up to Christmas and the actual day, the cold air from the continent will start to edge its way in. And it’s going to be a close call.

‘So, yes, it will get progressively colder and we will start to see the frost in the morning, especially over England and Wales to a degree.

‘The best we can hope for Christmas on the white side of things is a pseudo-white Christmas, which will be frost, and that is the favourite [with bookies] at this moment in time.

‘The one-up on that will be the cold air properly getting in, which may bring snow showers to the east and parts of the countryside, everything from Edinburgh and Newcastle, all the way down to London.

‘That is what we are toying with at the moment. After that, if the cold air does get in, I think the period between Christmas and New Years may well turn a lot more wintery but that is to be seen.’

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