The icy Easter weekend was declared the coldest for 44 years yesterday as forecasters warned of more bad weather for the rest of the month.

Snow and sleet storms made it a miserable trip home from the bank holiday break for up to 16million motorists last night.

And the Met Office could not offer any solace to those returning to work this morning after the first white Easter for more than a decade.

forecaster warned that it would be as cold as yesterday with temperatures hovering just above zero Celsius in the Midlands, the North and Scotland and a maximum of between 6c(42f) and 9c(48f) in the South.

He said: "Things will get a little milder as the week goes on but, unfortunately, there won't be more settled weather until early April.

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"Our forecasts for Spring suggests that, overall, temperatures are more likely to be at or above average across the whole of Europe and the UK, but this won't kick in for a little while."

He said it had been the coldest Easter since 1964, when, like this year, temperatures reached a maximum of 7c(44f) in the South.

"The fact that this Easter has fallen early and coincided with the coldest northerly air stream for the whole of winter means we have had Arctic origin air as cold as anything we have had over this year.

"It has been as bitter as any northerly wind we saw in January. It's just bad luck that it has coincided with the Easter weekend."

This year saw the first snowfall in lowland areas on Easter Sunday since 1995, and the most severe fall since 1983.

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