The late and unseasonally cold and snowy weather that has swept across Britain in the past few days threatens to push down the nation's GDP figures.

The British economy fell into decline for the final quarter of 2012 of -0.3 percent, and a second consecutive quarter of GDP shrinkage would put it into technical recession.

Samuel Tombs, British economist with Capital Economics in London, told Xinhua, "I think the weather will have a small influence, whether it is enough to tip the economy into triple-dip recession is hard to tell at this stage."

"It will have an impact on the consumer sector; perhaps we will see a one percent fall in retail sales in March," Tombs added.

Tombs said, "Other sectors of the economy will also be affected. The construction sector is often affected by bad weather, and supply chains are often affected too which can have an impact on the manufacturing sector."

He said, "Whether the economy grows or declines by a small figure in the first quarter is neither here nor there; the main picture is that the economy is struggling to grow at all."

The government's fiscal squeeze was still continuing, and inflation was set to pick up adding a further dampener to household spending, said Tombs.

The British economy has struggled to find growth since the onset of the financial crisis in 2008, and economists and the British government have continually downgraded their expectations of GDP growth in the face of continued stagnation.

Britain's finance minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, had predicted growth for 2013 of 1.2 percent in his Budget in March 2012. By the time of his March Budget this year he had slashed that figure to 0.6 percent, as the British economy continued to flatline.

Tombs said that he predicted the economy to grow by just 0.2 percent in 2013. "There is no underlying improvement this year," he said.

If the economy doe slip into recession it will be the third in just five years, and the first occasion that this triple-dip has happened to Britain.

However, a recession might not be that significant; the British economy has struggled to grow, and stagnated through 2012. A slight fall in GDP for the first quarter of 2013 makes a significant headline, but no significant difference to an economy that is merely bumping along.

"If the triple-dip is caused by bad weather I don't think it is significant," said Tombs.

He added, "If we see retail sales lost in March by bad weather we should see them recover by April. Given that the bad weather has come at the end of the quarter there is no opportunity for catch-up within the quarter."

Xinhua