Oxford was lucky to avoid snow this morning, the Met Office has said.

Wintry snow showers were predicted to hit from the early hours until 8am, but the temperature did not fall low enough to turn the rain into snow.

Barry Gromett, a spokesman for the Met Office, said: “I think you have been relatively lucky in many respects. You don’t have to go too far west of Oxford to see that.

“You can see evidence in the Cotswolds of 2cm to 5cm of snow (1in to 2in). It was never very far away — it was a close call.

“Temperatures last night at Benson held up at about 2C. If they had dropped another degree, the heavy rain that was falling would have quite readily turned into snow.”