Are you dreaming of a white Easter?

It's on track to be the coldest March in 50 years, and now it looks like this weekend's snow will still be around on Easter Sunday.

Leon Brown, meteorologist at The Weather Channel, told AOL Travel: "There is no sign of warmer weather as we near the Easter weekend and move into Spring. It looks like the easterly flow and cold high pressure block over Scandinavia will persist until early April and snowmen made this weekend will likely still be around for Easter weekend.

"It will stay mainly dry next week, so no more heavy snowfalls, just lighter showers. There will be some severe night frosts from Tuesday onwards, and temperatures below minus 10C are likely."

Bookies have now slashed their odds on a white Easter, with Ladbrokes cutting the odds to 4/5.

Ladbrokes' spokesman Alex Donohue told the Daily Mail: "We've never seen so many bets on a white Easter. People up and down the land are banking on the snowfall continuing into next weekend."

It's quite a change from last year, as 2012 was the sunniest March since 1929.

The Daily Mail reports that yesterday temperatures peaked at 2C, but this time last year we were enjoying highs of 22C.

The bitterly cold weather has already claimed thousands of lives: The Daily Mail reports that about an extra 2,000 dealths were registered in the first two weeks of March, compared with the average for the same period over the past five years. For February, 3,057 extra deaths were registered in England and Wales, compared with the five-year average.

Blizzards caused havoc across much of the country yesterday. Snow drifts reached 15ft in parts of Cumbria, power lines were down in Northern Ireland, Scotland and North Wales and a number of airports, including East Midlands, Leeds and Humberside were temporarily closed for snow and ice to be cleared.

A Met Office spokesman told the Daily Mail: "The signals are that temperatures will start to return to normal after Easter."

Click on the image below for some ideas for Easter holiday days out...

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