Panicked forecasters raised the alert in the past hour after spotting the freak system on the weather models.Rare in the UK it is identical to the phenomenon which triggered crippling whiteouts and ice storms in the United States.Sparked by the frenzied and volatile behaviour of the jet stream it threatens to bring the fury of the North Pole tearing across the country next week.

Forecasters say temperatures will plunge to below -15C (5F) while feet-deep snow drifts on a par with the worst winters in history are likely.The whole of the UK will be scourged by screaming Arctic gales and blizzards right through the first half of February.

A repeat of the historic freeze of 2010 which brought the coldest temperatures on record and ground airports to a standstill, is feared. Weather experts say they have issued a stark warning to emergency services and the Government to take action now.Airports, railway lines and roads are expected to grind to a shivering halt with extreme cold threatening the lives of thousands of people.

Piers Corbyn, forecaster for WeatherAction, warned a "catastrophic" set of circumstances have come together to trigger a lethal spell of weather. He said: "This could lead to anything, gales, huge snowstorms and the lowest temperatures of winter so far. "We are now 95 per cent certain that the whole of the country will be affected from the start of February.

"Such is the severity of this situation I have written to the Government's Cabinet Office Briefing Room (COBRA) committee urging them to take immediate action." The terrifying prediction is the result of a deeply meandering jet stream which has been largely responsible for the erratic weather this winter.

At the start of the season forecasters warned this big freeze would hit towards the end of December, but the frenzied deviation of the jet stream nudged it out of the way.The fast-flowing band of air is now poised to shift to a much more southerly position allowing the contents of the North Pole to flood into the UK.Swathes of the UK face knee-deep snow drifts with roads set to turn into deadly ice rinks sparking travel chaos.

Mr Corbyn said: "This is going to be a severely damaging spell of weather, the NHS is thoroughly unprepared and has been lucky up until now as it has not been too severe."But this is about to change dramatically with a displaced Polar vortex likely to dominate the weather for the first half of next month."

Australia has witnessed the largest number of butterflies in 40 years with a combination of rain and heat providing perfect breeding conditions for the insects, an expert has said.

According to Queensland Museum's director of entomology, Christine Lambkin, the combination of rain and heat has provided perfect breeding conditions for the insects which can been seen fluttering through the skies.

"We have had a long extended dry period that has been broken by good rains at the right time of the year. So we have got the warmth as well as the rain and that is what has caused the adults to break the aestivation (insect hibernation) and emerge in numbers.

"Some of them will be trying to mate and lay eggs so that the caterpillars are going to come up on that flush new growth from the rain," Lambkin said.

It was like a scene from Alfred Hitchcock's movie 'The Birds.' A giant flock of birds invaded the sky in a Houston neighborhood.

The birds covered the utility wires and the edges of roofs. The man who shot the video was driving by when he spotted the amazing sight.

Amazing images of lighting in the eye of a cyclone have been captured by an astronaut on the ISS.

The incredible views of tropical cyclone Bansi were spotted in the Indian Ocean near the island of Mauritius, when the ISS was east of Madagascar.

The calm 'eye' of the storm can be seen illuminated by lightning and surrounded by swirling clouds as it made its way across the ocean

In times of famine, some animals go to desperate measures to stay alive, including eating members of their own species.

Now scientists have captured one of the first cases of cannibalism in hippopotamuses on camera.

The grisly photographs show a hippo eating a corpse of another floating in a river in South Africa's Kruger National Park.

Dozens of diners ran for their lives as a raging wild boar smashed its way into a motorway service station cafe - and the carnage was caught on CCTV

This is the moment terrified diners ran for their lives when a wild pig smashed its way into a service station restaurant in South Korea.

Dozens of customers fled in terror as a rampaging wild boar broke into the Highway Rest Stop cafe, smashing windows and slamming into walls.

The angry animal attacked the glass door of the cafe at full speed before wreaking havoc inside as punters scrambled to avoid a pummelling - with some even standing on tables to get out of the way.

Nature experts have discovered a remarkable submerged forest thousands of years old under the sea close to the Norfolk coast.

The trees were part of an area known as 'Doggerland' which formed part of a much bigger area before it was flooded by the North Sea.It was once so vast that hunter-gatherers who lived in the vicinity could have walked to Germany across its land mass.

The underwater forest was discovered by Dawn Watson and Rob Spray from Sea Search on a diving trip to study marine life.The prehistoric forest lay undiscovered until it was exposed by the extreme storms along the east of England coast in December 2013.

We interrupt this column for a special announcement: "A gyrfalcon has appeared in Wells Harbor!"

The gyrfalcon is the largest falcon in the world, capable of taking down a Canada goose. It preys principally on ptarmigan, a chicken-like bird of the tundra, but it is so powerful that it is known to dine on other formidable raptors of the north, such as short-eared owls and rough-legged hawks. It breeds in barren arctic regions around the world, but occasionally wanders southward in winter. It seldom stays long in one place.

My small group was on the prowl for snowy owls when we visited southern Maine last weekend. Several unusual birds also were known to be in the area, including a king eider in Ogunquit. The forecast was ideal, so down Interstate 95 we went. As we pulled into the public parking lot next to the harbor in Wells, a large hawk rested on the nearest tree - in fact, the only tree on the lot.

Hundreds of dead guillemots were recently found by farmer Gunnar Óli Hákonarsson at Sandur in Aðaldalur, North Iceland. The birds, which were found on a beach east of the mouth of Skjálfandafljót river, are believed to have died from starvation due to bad weather in December. Foxes and ravens have been scavenging on the bird carcasses.

Böðvar Þórisson at the Natural Institute of the West Fjords told mbl.is this week that a large number of seabirds were found dead in Ísafjörður earlier this month. An increase in seagulls, which are more aggressive in their feeding habits, may be to blame, he said.

According to Róbert Á. Stefánsson at the Natural Institute of West Iceland, even seagulls have been hungry this winter.

Climate change alarmists have been likened to a fanatical 'cult' by an MIT professor of meteorology.

Dr Richard Lindzen told a Massachusetts-based radio station that people who believe in global warming are becoming more hysterical in their arguments.

'As with any cult, once the mythology of the cult begins falling apart, instead of saying, oh, we were wrong, they get more and more fanatical,' he said. 'You've led an unpleasant life, you haven't led a very virtuous life, but now you're told, you get absolution if you watch your carbon footprint. It's salvation.'