Met Office predicts "heavy falls of snow" threatening travel chaos

The Met Office said that parts of East-Anglia and south east England would be affected the most and that snow showers, sometimes heavy, would continue into Friday.

Cold weather is set to continue into the weekend with frost and ice likely to affect untreated roads.

Andy Page, Chief Forecaster at the Met Office, said, “Eastern and south-eastern parts of England will see the heaviest snowfall, but there could be a covering of snow in some places further west and north too.”

However the Met Office downplayed any ideas of a “white Christmas”, saying it was too early to tell if there would be snow on Christmas Day.

Earlier this year the Met Office was criticised for predicting a “barbecue summer”, which never materialised. It has also become involved in the recent Climategate scandal, in which leaked emails from the University of East Anglia suggest that scientists have manipulated data to support the theory of global warming and have distorted the peer review process by shutting out scientists sceptical of climate change.