WEATHER experts say Bath is unlikely to see a break with tradition and experience its first white Christmas in eight years.

Despite 3-1 odds from one bookmaker, Ladbrokes, for snow to fall in London this Christmas Day, forecasters at the Met Office in Cardiff say that Bath is not in the best position to receive a flurry of snow on December 25.

Said Dave Britton, a forecaster at the Met Office: "Bath is reasonably well sheltered as it has hills to the north west of it which tend to block the snow. Instead, the snow just hits the hills.

"I think the thing about Bath is that the topography, the shape of the landscape, is so varied. Snow is so much more likely to lie at higher ground than it is at sea level and the higher you go the more likely you are to see snow. It is too early, however, to completely rule out a white Christmas," he said.

Records of white Christmases, which require a single snowflake to fall on Christmas Day, have only been kept in Bath since 1990 with the construction of a weather centre at Beechen Cliff Secondary School.

Since then, only Christmas Day in 1993 has seen falling and lying snow with the city later blessed on December 5, 6, 15, 21 & 27 in 1995, culminating with 4cm of lying snow reported on December 28 and 29 last year.

Unofficial data of recordings made by the Met Office in Bristol, also points to snow reaching Bath on Christmas Day in 1938, 1950, 1956, 1963 and 1970 before the 23-year drought of snowballs.

According to Graham Sharpe of bookmakers William Hill: "Nobody really expects anything for the British weather. But people will notice that we have had a few years of weather extremes.

"We had a very warm October so extremes can go either way all over Britain this Christmas."