With some snow and ice still on the ground, Cumbria looks set to have a white Christmas this year.

And technically it could also qualify as a white Christmas, as the Met Office says there could be a few snow flurries during Christmas morning.

However, this is unlikely to amount to much, says Alan Goodman, the Met Office Regional Advisor for North West England.

But tonight is going to be extremely cold with some possible record low temperatures.

This is Mr Goodman’s latest weather bulletin: “It’s mainly sunny but very cold today with temperatures staying mostly below freezing (perhaps briefly just above for an hour or two in the city centres of Manchester, Liverpool, Preston etc.).

“Tonight the main interest, both to those weather anoraks like myself and to those who may be venturing out to midnight services, will be the depths to which temperatures will fall. This looks like being one of the coldest nights of the current cold spell taken across the region as a whole with just about everywhere dropping in to the -5C to -10C zone and a good few sites seeing -10C to -15C.

“I expect to see one or two of the usual suspects going below -15C and local records may be at risk of being broken. One or two patches of freezing fog may also form which could prove stubbornly persistent through tomorrow.

“For most of us, though, tomorrow will be another very cold and largely fine day. I say largely because the issue of a white Christmas is not quite as clear cut as I thought earlier. Those of you up in Cumbria (especially towards the border) could see a few snow flurries during the morning - not amounting to anything but at least technically qualifying as a white Christmas.

“Here too skies will be somewhat cloudier than further south where the best of the day's sunshine will be. Temperatures will again struggle to reach freezing, staying several degrees below in the coldest locations.

“Saturday night will be dry with variable cloud and some clearer spells, the clearest (and coldest) conditions liable to be in the south of the region where -10C to -15C is possible. Further north not quite as cold as tonight with rather more cloud around.

“Sunday at the moment looks dry and bright but still very cold. I say bright, rather than sunny, as cloud will be starting to thicken up from the west. This is the start of what is still a very uncertain transition period to a somewhat less cold regime but the detail from Sunday night through to Tuesday remains a mishmash with a host of different scenarios possible.

“To add to the previously listed possibilities of i) brief snow then rain and quick thaw, ii) prolonged, disruptive snow and slow subsequent thaw, we can now add iii) not much snow or rain after all but with a slow thaw ensuing.

“The four main weather uncertainties we're grappling with are; 1) How fast/slow the precipitation moves from west to east through the course of Sunday and Monday 2) How much precipitation actually occurs 3) How much of it is snow and how much falls as rain/sleet 4) How fast/slow the less cold air takes to feed in and take effect in terms of thawing the lying snow/ice “Unfortunately we will have to play a waiting game on this until the detail becomes clearer.

“In the meantime we must live with the ongoing ice risk for which we are maintaining Advisories on the website.”

Check http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/nw/nw_forecast_warnings.html for details.