It might be a bit late for a White Christmas but a blanket of snow and frost in parts of the West yesterday meant a pretty, if a bit chilly, New Year's Eve for much of the region.

Parts of Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and Somerset woke up to unexpected early morning snowfall as the cold snap which plagued mid-December made its frosty presence felt again.

And although temperatures may be skating around zero now, 2009 is set to be one of the warmest five on record according to climate scientists.

The average global temperature for 2009 is expected to be a balmy 14.4C (57.9 F), more than 0.4C above the long term average, making next year warmer than this year and the hottest since 2005, the Met Office and University of East Anglia researchers said.

But the Met Office said that people hoping for a hot British summer could be disappointed. A spokesman said: "We can't really draw any conclusions from this about UK weather. The figures are for air temperatures across the globe."

Dr Peter Stott of the Met Office says that human actions are contributing to the warming effect: "Human influence, particularly emission of greenhouse gases, has greatly increased the chance of having such warm years."

The West's leading Greenpeace campaigner, Wilf Mound, said that it was "criminal" that more has not been done to combat global warming.

Mr Mound, 69, added that there was an opportunity for politicians to go green while fighting the credit crunch.

He said: "With the economy as it is, this is a great opportunity to promote rail and mass forms of transport. There are plenty of jobs to be created in the green economy."