Mild Christmas in store for Britain

It will not be a white Christmas, but it will be windy in the north and west

Published: 11:34pm, 24th December 2011
Updated: 9:43am, 25th December 2011

Britons will enjoy an "extremely mild" Christmas Day and Boxing Day, weather forecasters said.

Temperatures of around 10C to 13C across the country, with some parts of the UK reaching up to 14C, have dashed any dream of a white Christmas this year.

It leaves temperatures close to the warmest Christmas Days on record, registered when thermometers hit 15.6C in 1896 and 1920.

Forecaster Paul Mott for MeteoGroup, the Press Association's weather division, said: "In much of the UK it will be a very mild day for Christmas although not quite the mildest Christmas on record.

"Temperatures will perhaps be as high as 14C in eastern parts of Yorkshire and in north-east Scotland.

"But while it will be a dry day in the South East it will be cloudy and windy in the North and the West, with a stormy day in the Northern Isles and severe gale force winds and damaging gusts of up to 90mph in the Shetland and Orkney Islands.

"North-west Scotland will see up to 13mm of rain and will perhaps suffer some localised flooding."

Football fans - and fans of good weather in general - can look forward to some holiday sport without the usual chill, as Boxing Day is also set to be a mild day.