
Britons will toast in 2020 basking in the warmest weather since 1841 thanks to a tropical plume blowing from the Atlantic.

On New Years Eve, the mercury is expected to climb to 16C, excelling temperatures in sun-seeker hotspots such as Corfu in Greece.

Revellers will also be buoyed by the forecast of calm and dry conditions which will give the green light to the thousands of fireworks expected to be launched on Tuesday night.

But first the country will battle through torrential rain tipping on much of the UK, which has been partially submerged from flooding.

Some 95 flood warnings remain in place for much of the south of England and aerial pictures show roads and fields under water.

The Environment Agency said: 'Groundwater flooding is expected in parts of the South until December 31 at least. Some properties will flood and there will be travel disruption.'

Britons will toast in 2020 basking in the warmest weather since 1841 thanks to a tropical plume blowing from the Atlantic

Some 95 flood warnings remain (Sutton Gault, Cambrideshire, pictured) with large areas still under water, but the UK is headed for its warmest New Years Eve for nearly 200 years

First the country will battle through torrential rain tipping on much of the UK, which has been partially submerged from flooding (Hampshire pictured)

Joggers taking part in the Roundhay Park run in Leeds brave the misty and cold conditions this morning, but will look forward to a climb in temperatures going into the New Year

Unusually, the warmer spell is the result of an area of high pressure, which would typically bring cold and frosty weather from the Continent

After seeing off the worst of the rainfall, Britons can look forward to a largely dry start to the decade with no sign of a cold snap in January.

Wales and Scotland will be warmest at 16C, 9C above the average and Londoners will enjoy a moderate 11C.

Met Office forecaster Simon Partridge said: 'A tropical maritime air mass from the Azores is good news for New Year's Eve, with very mild 15-16C highs up to and including Tuesday.

'Conditions look pretty decent for fireworks, with light winds, and New Year's Day looks mild at 13C. 'North Wales and North-East Scotland will see the mildest temperatures in coming days, but even London's 11C will be 3C above average.

'There will not be additional issues with groundwater flooding, as it stays dry and mild with sunny spells for the next week in the South and Midlands, with some rain in the second half of the week in the North.'

In Athens, meanwhile, the predicted high is 9C (48F) today and 8C (46F) tomorrow, while in Rome 11C (52F) is expected today and 9C (48F) tomorrow.

Unusually, the warmer spell is the result of an area of high pressure, which would typically bring cold and frosty weather from the Continent.

A dog called Sandy playing in a flooded road in Sutton Gault near Ely, Cambridgeshire, this morning after the recent rainfall caused the Old Bedford River to burst its banks

A flooded field between Ringwood and Fordingbridge in Hampshire, which has been one of the worst affected flood-hit areas

This time, however, it is trapping an area of cloud and mild air.

Sunshine is likely to be limited and some rain is forecast, including a potentially heavy spell in the North-West today.

Emma Smith, of the Met Office, said Scotland and Northern Ireland could also expect wet and windy weather this weekend 'but for many of us it is likely to be cloudy, drier and mild'.

The beginning of next week is set to turn chillier as the current area of high pressure is replaced by a second one bringing colder air.

Parts of Wales could wake to frost on Monday and temperatures could fall to 1-2C (34-36F) even in southern England.

Tuesday could begin with fog but is expected to be mainly fine and dry into the night for New Year's Eve.

The settled conditions follow wet and windy weather for much of November and December.

Luke Miall, of the Met Office, said: ‘It’ll be mild over the next few days but the warmest weather will only be in certain areas. It will still be milder than usual in most parts of the country, and it will be mainly dry, too, although there will be some rain in north-west Scotland.’

Rain is also still causing problems in parts of Dorset, Hampshire and Sussex affected by flooding earlier this month.

A flooded street in Puddletown, in Dorset, after the river Piddle burst its banks. The flooding has continued into the after-Christmas period

Oscar, a west highland terrier, has an encounter with swans on the Calder and Hebble Navigation near Elland, West Yorkshire

The settled conditions follow wet and windy weather for much of November and December. Pictured: A car drives through floodwater near Harbridge

Attack of the 'heat blobs': Moscow endures record Christmas temperatures, Antarctic ice melts at the fastest rate ever and a huge patch of warm sea appears off New Zealand

Russians bracing for the typical winter chill have been left baffled by unusually warm weather which scuppered the country's hopes of a white Christmas.

At this time of year, Moscow is usually blanketed in snow, but it is not expected until the turn of the year after temperatures on Tuesday climbed to 43.2F, the hottest Christmas Eve on record.

Earlier this month, the capital was transformed into a winter wonderland as roads, buildings and people were smothered with snowfall.

But pictures over the festive period show revellers parading along the bare tarmac with a distinctively less seasonal feel.

The jump in temperature comes amid a spike in the rate ice sheets are melting in the Antarctic, sparking environmentalists to pin the shift in weather patterns on global warming.

And a hot patch of water spotted off the eastern coast of New Zealand has poured petrol on an already burning international row over climate change.

Russians bracing for the typical winter chill have been left baffled by unusually warm weather which has scuppered the country's hopes of a white Christmas (Lubyanskaya Square in Moscow pictured)

The jump in temperature comes amid a spike in the rate ice caps are melting in the Antarctic, sparking environmentalists to pin the shift in weather patterns on global warming (file photo)

A map shows temperatures across the globe today, as Russia enjoys an unseasonably warm winter

The rare absence of winter snow follows a summer where wildfires ravaged the Russian countryside and blew smoke into cities.

President Vladimir Putin, who has expressed scepticism about man-made climate change, even said he would double down on his ecological efforts.

At his end-of-year press conference, he said: 'We know that in the history of the Earth there have been periods of warming and cooling, and this might depend on the global processes in the universe.

'A small tilt of the Earth's axis and its orbit around the sun can lead to and have already led to very serious climate changes on the Earth, which had dramatic consequences - good or bad, they were still dramatic.'

'And it is happening again now. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to work out exactly how humankind affects climate change.

'But we cannot stay idle either, I agree with my colleagues. We should make our best efforts to prevent dramatic changes in the climate.'

Pictures over the festive period show revellers parading along the bare tarmac with a distinctively less seasonal feel

Earlier this month, the capital was transformed into a winter wonderland as roads, buildings and people were smothered with snowfall (pictured December 3)

At the other pole, scientists have found the Antarctic has seen its biggest melting on record.

Between November and February, ice melting rates in the region accelerates and around 8 per cent of the caps disappear.

But monitoring by the University of Liège in Belgium found that on Christmas Eve 16 per cent of the ice went into meltdown - an area the size of Denmark.

Robin Bell, a geophysics professor at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, told Earther: '[The ice shelves are] kind of like the cork in the bottle. They're holding back a lot of the ice in Antarctica.

'It means you're pumping more ice into the ocean, and that's what matters for sea level.'

A hot patch of water spotted off the eastern coast of New Zealand has poured petrol on an already burning international row over climate change

Meanwhile a hot patch of water off the eastern coast of New Zealand has created a huge red blob on heat maps as a marine heatwave sweeps the South Pacific Ocean.

The blotch stretches tens of thousands of square kilometres and is one of the warmest sea spots on the planet with temperatures of up to 20C.

The water is 4C degrees above the average temperature of 10 to 15C, nearing temperatures in the Tropics, which range between 20 and 30C.

Professor James Renwick, a weather and climate researcher at Victoria University, said the phenomenon is caused when an area becomes concentrated with sunshine and little wind.