Forecasters are predicting one of the mildest Christmases on record with temperatures potentially peaking at 15C and no chance of snow anywhere in the UK.
The unseasonably clement weather means no major travel disruption is expected despite possibly the busiest Christmas on the roads for three years.
A new warm front from the south-west will bring a sudden end to the cold snap of the past few days. Temperatures are forecast to improve markedly across the UK from about 4C or 5C on Monday to 14C or 15C on Christmas Eve, according to the Meteo Group.
The Met Office is also predicting “notably high temperatures” over the festive period,
Spokesperson Oli Claydon said: “The key notable factor of the weather through this week really is the mild conditions and higher temperatures.
“The risk of ice and any snow that we had over the weekend has diminished, and no notable heavy rain should bring any impacts to the transport network.”
He added that Christmas Eve on Tuesday was expected to be the mildest day with 14C and “potentially even up to 15C in some places”.
He added that temperatures would tail off slowly towards the end of the week. The prediction comes as the Christmas getaway period nears its end.
The warmest Christmas Eve on record was in 1931, when 15.5C was recorded in Aberdeen and Banff in Scotland. The warmest Christmas Day was 15.6C, recorded at Killerton, Devon in 1920.
This year is forecast to be second Christmas in a row that temperatures have hovered around the low teens centigrade.
The RAC is predicting 3.7m festive road trips on Christmas Eve, 4.1m on Christmas Day and 4.5m on Boxing Day. If correct, these projections, based on a survey of 2,100 adults, would mean the highest volumes of Christmas traffic since 2021.
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But an RAC spokesperson added: “The roads shouldn’t feel too busy due to the absence of commercial and commuter traffic.”
The AA’s president, Edmund King, said the peak of the Christmas getaway occurred over the weekend and that the road network “coped relatively well with the traffic”.
He said: “With Christmas Day falling on a Wednesday, drivers have already had four different days to travel. Most journeys have been relatively short, and the majority have been under 50 miles.
The railways are also relatively trouble-free, with no major disruption on the network, according to passenger information service National Rail Enquiries. But the Rail Delivery Group urged passengers to check before travelling.