Lancashire's Christmas set to be wet not white

The gales are set to slowly build up this week before gusts of up to 70mph batter Lancashire, according to Weather Online, an online forecasting site.

The site even predicts some minor damage as heavy rain leaves the county wet rather than white.

It would take some storm to surpass last year’s weather with floods devastating the county with many areas finding themselves under water on Boxing Day.

But the Met Office thinks it is too early to predict such extremes and spokesman Oli Claydon said: “We’re definitely going to get some more unsettled weather over the next few days.

“A low pressure system will mean from Tuesday night or Wednesday morning it will become windier with the chance of rain but I think it’s too early to accurately predict the weekend.”

Croston and St Micheals on Wyre were both hit by a Boxing Day storm last year and Stuart Markham, who owns and runs forecasting website Chorley Weather, is also predicting a stormy Christmas.

On his website he says: “As we head into the weekend however conditions start to deteriorate again with a stormy period of weather expected through the weekend, including Christmas Day. The specific details are not yet possible to determine but the models have been quite firm in hinting at deep areas of low pressure developing for next weekend.”

The weather experts are also predicting temperatures to plummet - coming close to zero degrees.

Temperatures have been mild for the past few weeks but by Saturday are set to drop to normal lows for this time of year so sledges will have to wait with snow only predicted for north of the border.