Bookies have speculated that temperatures may even drop to -10 degrees Celsius by the end of this week. Leading bookmaker Coral has cut the odds to 1-2 (from 6-4) for temperatures to drop to -10C in the UK by the end of this week. Coral’s bookmakers representative John Hill said: “With temperatures dropping fast this week, we have seen a flurry of bets for -10C being recorded over the next few days.

“It has been a mild winter up to this point but if the latest odds are correct, we could be set for some bone-chilling temperatures before we hit spring.”

Overnight fog conditions were described by the Met Office as causing visibility to drop to under 300ft (100m) in some areas across southern England, after temperatures fell to -4 Celsius overnight, this will be colder than Reykjavik in Iceland, at 1 Celsius.

Public Health England officials have issued a mid-range cold weather alert running from Sunday until 6pm tonight, urging people to prepare for cold weather conditions and look out for those most at risk.

A Met Office fog warning was imposed until 11am for an area with a northern border of Oxford and Bristol, down to the south coast at Southampton and Exeter, with slower journey times and delays to train services possible.

The weather warning, which ran from 3am this morning, said: “Fog patches will be slow to clear and may last into the afternoon in a few places though visibilities should gradually improve during the morning.”

Conditions in North West England are cloudier today, with showers on higher ground.

The bookmakers speculations contradict the forecasts of meteorologists findings that the UK has experienced one of its warmest winters on record.

The -4 Celsius temperatures in southern England were in contrast to the 10 Celsius in Scotland at the same time early this morning.

Research from the Met Office states the reason for a decrease in cold spells in the UK this winter is likely linked to climate change; likewise, an increase in warm spells during the summer is also related to this.

The Met Office released global temperature figures on Wednesday, January 15 which showed that for the globe as a whole, the last decade has been the warmest on record and when looking at temperatures for London, seven out of the 10 warmest years have been in the 2000’s.

A spokesperson from the Met Office said: “The whole of the country, London included, has seen a relatively mild winter so far with very little snow, apart from over the hill tops and mountains of Scotland and northern England.”

In December, the mean temperature for the City of London was 1.3 Celsius above average at 7.3 Celsius, and for January so far it’s been 3.1 Celsius above the average at 8.7 Celsius.

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The Met Office said: “Although evidence shows the climate around the globe, as well as here in the UK, is warming this does not mean we will not experience periods of cold weather and periods of snow fall such as the so called Beast from the East in 2018.

“It’s just likely that some cold spells might not be as extreme as they would have been before the influence of climate change, while higher-temperature extremes are more likely to be record-breaking.

“Climate change is shifting the register of natural variation.”

Data released by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) show that 2019 was the second warmest year in a series of exceptionally warm years across the globe, as CO2 concentrations continue to rise.

Together with the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service reports that CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere have continued to rise.

In Europe all seasons were warmer than usual, with the summer and autumn being the fourth warmest on record.

Europe aw its warmest calendar year on record, marginally ahead of 2014, 2015 and 2018.

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