DON'T put your thermals away just yet.

Freezing air from Russia is to grip the UK in what is set to be the coldest late February in five years.

The cold blast - dubbed the 'Beast from the East' - will see temperatures plunge below zero from Sunday night, with some areas seeing lows of minus 8C (17.6F).

A forecaster joked that spring had been 'postponed' due to the chill arriving from the east just before March 1 - the first day of the meteorological spring.

Met Office meteorologist Martin Bowles said temperatures of minus 8C are expected widely across the country.

Mr Bowles said: "Somewhere like the Scottish mountains might go lower than that, but that's actually quite normal in the Scottish mountains, whereas it's definitely not normal to have minus 5C in London at the end of February.

"We haven't had temperatures that low in late February since 2013. It's not unheard of. There are records that are lower than that.

"But it is quite unusual, particularly as it's quite late in the season.

"We refer to March 1 as being the first day of spring and of course March 1 will be right in the middle of this cold spell, so spring will be postponed for a couple of weeks, shall we say."

How will it affect the north west?

The Met Office says the air will be cold enough next week for snow anywhere between the Isles of Scilly and Shetland. 

A weather warning is currently in place for snow over the east side of the country. 

But at the moment the warning hasn't spread to the north west. 

However temperatures will struggle to get above freezing and could drop to -3 overnight.