DRIVERS are facing another week of travel chaos with the weathermen predicting sub-zero temperatures and the possibility of fresh snowfalls.

Richard Cornwell

By Richard Cornwell>

DRIVERS are facing another week of travel chaos with the weathermen predicting sub-zero temperatures and the possibility of fresh snowfalls.

The thaw is expected to be very slow - and it could still be a white Christmas.

There was some good news at the weekend as families in the Ipswich area, Bury St Edmunds, Brandon and Wenhaston, who had suffered two days of power cuts at last had their electricity reconnected.

More snow fell in the early hours of yesterday - about an inch in Ipswich - and more snow could be on the way tonight .

Weathermen are warning the below-freezing temperatures will continue for most of this week and even on the best days they will struggle to reach zero C.

With the snow set to stay on the ground, Christmas Day could look like a Christmas card out of the window - though it is still uncertain as to whether any fresh falls will make it officially a white Christmas.

A spokesman for Weatherquest said inland Suffolk could see between two and four centimetres tonight as a fresh band of snow is set to sweep across, but in coastal areas it is more likely to be mixed with rain and be “quite sleety”.

“Over the next few days temperatures during daytime and overnight are set to remain below freezing - typically minus 2C and minus 3C, though in a few places it might make it up to zero,” he said.

In west Suffolk temperatures at night could fall as low as minus 6C.

Latest predictions show a band of milder air set to push up from the south on Christmas Eve.

“It depends how this goes but if we still stay on one side of this we could see a few wintry showers on Christmas Day and there will probably be snow around on the ground, too,” he added.

The last time the Ipswich area had snow on the ground on Christmas Day was 1981, though no new snow fell on Christmas Day.

The last official white Christmas in Suffolk was in 1970.

With lots of snow still around at the weekend, there was plenty of fun to be had.

In Ipswich's Bourne Park, Leigh Warner, 21, a bricklayer, and Dale Moyes, 24, a lorry driver, both of Wherstead Road, and Tony Grimwood, 20, a mechanic, of Belstead Avenue, built a life-size igloo.

Using a large plastic tub to create the “snow bricks”, it took the threesome - all off work due to the weather - more than four hours to make the structure.

At Nacton, there was a white wedding - as Caroline Cooper, head of sport at Orwell Park School, and Alex Brunt, who teaches sport and geography at the independent school, married at the village church, St Martin's, and had their photos taken in the snowy scenery outside afterwards.

The bride's white dress hid a pair of wellies she was wearing, and she was late arriving because of the weather affecting the country roads.