Britain is set for 40 hours of snow and gale force winds as temperatures drop as low as -12°C in the coming days.

The Met Office has issued yellow weather warnings lasting nearly two days in the North of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, with a foot of snow expected in some places.

Meanwhile the south is braced for heavy rain and wind over the next couple of days.

Meteorologist Alex Burkill said that freezing rain could turn to snow over parts of Scotland and north-east of England from Wednesday night into Thursday morning.

He warned that most of the UK is set for more rain throughout the day with the possibility of ‘fairly significant snow’ in the North, Midlands and possibly further east, he added.

Though there are warnings of as much as 30cm of snow in Scotland, Mr Burkill said that rainfall would ‘go some way to preventing much snow lying’ elsewhere through Thursday in particular.

Yellow weather warnings for snow are in place in Scotland and much of the North of England from 8am to 9pm tomorrow and Thursday. Yellow warnings for rain are in place in the west of Northern Ireland from 3pm tomorrow to 3am.

Mr Burkill added: ‘For northern England we could be looking at around 15cm, perhaps 20cm by the end of Thursday over the highest routes.

‘Further south I’m not really sure, particularly into the Midlands, that much if any will settle.’

He said central and eastern parts of England could see ‘maybe one or two centimetres’ of snow over the highest routes.

The forecaster added: ‘But because of how wet the ground is going to be leading up to it and how much rain there’ll be mixed in around as well there probably won’t be a huge amount settling.’

Temperatures could drop as low as -7°C in the east of England on Wednesday night and possibly to -11°C or -12°C in Scotland.

Mr Burkill added: ‘Through Wednesday and into Thursday I think if you’re stuck under the rain and you have that snow then temperatures could really be suppressed even by day.

‘Some places may only just about scrape above freezing on some days, so highs of between zero and 2C in some places.’

Further wintry weather is forecast to arrive on Saturday, and that ‘could bring heavy rain and also some significant snow particularly for central parts of England’.

Temperatures could plunge even further next week, Mr Burkill said, and there is ‘very much a possibility’ of another Beast from the East in the ‘middle of next week’.

The first Beast from the East, the name given to the significant snowfall in February 2018, happened when a sudden stratospheric warming event sent freezing winds from Siberia.

Mr Burkill said that for such weather to occur next week, ‘what we’d need is a blocking area of high pressure, particularly to the north of the UK, and that would then drag in that cold easterly wind’.

He added: ‘There are some signs that we could get something similar to that during the middle part of next week so that’s what we’re looking out for,” he said.

‘It’s too early to say with any confidence, however there are some signs.

‘Some models are suggesting we could get cold air coming from the east, north-east which at this time of year is very cold indeed, but it’s by no means a guarantee.’

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