Bookmakers are predicting record low temperatures in March, with even the chance of snow over the Easter weekend.

Ladbrokes have slashed the odds of March 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.

Temperatures dropped to -5C in Santon Downham last night and John Bacon, of Norwich based Weatherquest, predicts that the start of spring could mean snow for East Anglia.

'This week we will see cold, wet and unsettled weather with the possibility of snow and wintry showers in places due to a cold front from the west,' he said. 'This will begin to clear on Thursday before another front brings unsettled weather this weekend.'

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 London 3/1 for a late-March dusting, but Mr Bacon said it is too early to tell if Norfolk will see any flurries of snow over the Easter period.

'In the middle of the month we will see light winds which means in the sun temperatures will feel a lot warmer but as we move into Easter week the clear skies mean we could see ground frost overnight,' he said. 'It is too early to say if we will see any snow that weekend but what a lot of people do not know is that it is statistically more likely to snow on Easter Sunday than Christmas Day.'

Alex Donohue of Ladbrokes said of the possibility of a cold March: '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.'

Nationally 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.'

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