UK weather: Met Office forecasts heavy rain throughout the week amid warnings of 'rare' snowstorm

The UK is set for a washout week with heavy rain and grey skies forecast.

The country is set to be hit by up to 4mm in rainfall over the next few days, with the Met Office stating that rain cloud will "dominate" the skies. The forecast from the meteorological service for the upcoming week rom Tuesday onwards states: "Outbreaks of rain will spread across the UK, turning heavy at times. Becoming a little drier in southern England during the afternoon. Breezy for most and windy in the west.

"Rain continuing this week, particularly in the northwest where it will be occasionally heavy. Some fine and dry weather in the southeast at times. Turning milder through the week."

It comes only days after the Met Office revealed that the UK was in the midst of an extremely rare weather phenomenon, which has a likelihood of happening once in every 250 years. It was revealed that for the first time since records began three Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW) events have been experienced within the winter period.

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An SSW is described as a disruption of westerly air, which can make temperatures drop suddenly due to blocking low-pressure systems across the Atlantic. In some cases, SSWs can bring around unseasonable snowstorms due to the drop in temperatures.

Professor Adam Scaife, head of long-range forecasting at the Met Office, said: “Although we have not seen it before, we recently documented the chances of an unprecedented three SSW events happening in one winter. Our research work, using multiple computer simulations, showed that this could occur about once in every 250 winters. Although this is very rare, we also found that the chance of multiple SSW events is increased during El Niño and so the chance of multiple events this winter is raised.”