Santa will make his Christmas Eve sleigh ride through a dome of gloom before temperatures plummet in a sub-zero easterly blast.
Hopes of a winter wonderland are dashed for another year with the next 24 hours to be gripped by cloud, low mist and fog.
Then a double-anticyclonic pressure dome will slide over Britain, pulling in bitter winds from Russia and Eastern Europe.
For the whole country, Christmas now looks grey, murky and bitterly cold with only a vanishing chance of snow along the south coast.
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Met Office meteorologist Alex Deakin said: “High pressure is dotted all around us, one to the south, one to the west and one to the east.
“And two of these will become friends and join up over the Christmas period and this is going to bring a lot of dry weather, and we are going to draw in an easterly wind.
“Temperatures across the south will be below average for the time of year and with high pressure dominating and light winds across the north, there will be some mist and fog around so Santa may need Rudolf to guide the way.”
Wind and rain through the start of the month was driven by low pressure which has retreated in favour of a high-pressure ‘anticyclonic’ weather pattern.
An easterly blast will plunge Britain sub-zero
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High pressure at this time of year can trap low cloud and fog, driving stubborn ‘anticyclonic gloom’.
Trapped under such a gloom dome, swathes of the country will spend Christmas Eve under murky grey skies.
Cloud will clear in parts on Christmas Day, but only to make way for freezing winds from the east.
Met Office meteorologist Aidan McGivern said: “It is going to turn a touch colder over the next couple of days, and when you add in an easterly wind it is going to feel even colder.
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Aidan McGivern warns of Christmas wind chill
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“Christmas Eve, for many places is a grey and gloomy picture first thing, and it will be a little bit colder with the easterly wind picking up.
“It is going to be largely cloudy, and largely dry and cold on Christmas Eve, and that wind is going to get stronger and colder for Christmas Day.”
Southern regions on the sharp edge of the easterly will feel the bite of the cold, he warned.
Temperatures will sink below average for the time of year while an icy wind-chill will make it feel below freezing, he added.
He said: “It is the southern half of the UK that will feel the cold with that wind, but the wind will help to break up the cloud.
“Temperatures by the afternoon will be a little below average, and when you add on the wind, the feel-like temperatures will be sub-zero.”
Cold weather is likely to bed in through Christmas and into the start of January, according to long-range experts.
However, snow on the big day away from the far south and the hilltops will be a no-show.
Jim Dale, meteorologist for British Weather Services and co-author of ‘Surviving Extreme Weather’, said: “We are more likely to have an anticyclonic gloom dominating through the Christmas period, with it turning much colder from Christmas Day.
“Then the outlook is for the colder weather to stay in place through the rest of the year and into 2026.”
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