Bookmakers cut odds on record low temperatures in March

Bookmakers are predicting record low temperatures this spring time, with the possibility of snow over the Easter weekend.

Ladbrokes have slashed the odds of March 2016 being the coldest on record to 2/1 from 5/1, while it is now just 5/1 that a new low temperature is recorded, beating the -22.8C record set in 1958.

It is long odds-on at 1/5 that snow falls somewhere in the country over the Easter weekend - Good Friday is on March 25 - with the capital 3/1 for a late-March dusting.

Alex Donohue of Ladbrokes said: "Sadly the odds of the country shivering this spring are very short indeed. The betting suggests cold weather records for March are very close to being broken."

Forecasters have said there is nothing on the long-range forecast which would suggest anything too unusual in the coming months.

Tom Crocker from the Met Office said: "There are signs of colder than average temperatures perhaps towards the latter half of March, but generally there is nothing extreme in the long-range forecast."