Parts of England could see up to 10cm of snow on Saturday with forecasters warning areas face ‘significant disruption’ and could even be cut off.
The Met Office has issued an amber weather warning for snow across East Anglia while large parts of the UK, including Scotland, northern England, the East Midlands, London and the South East, are covered by yellow warnings.
It comes after a night of freezing temperatures with the mercury dipping as low as -11C in North Yorkshire.
Parts of London were already covered in snow this morning with drivers warned to stay off the roads.
Luke Miall, meteorologist at the Met Office, said: ‘The east of England is the area where we can see the highest impact from the snowfall.
‘In terms of the amount of snowfall, we’re likely to see in the region of one to three centimetres quite widely within that area but potentially as much as five to 10 centimetres in some places.
‘That’s a fairly decent amount of snow and enough to cause some fairly significant disruption.’
The Met Office amber warning, which covers large areas of Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk, will be in place until 2pm on Saturday.
It states that ‘a band of rain and heavy snow may lead to travel disruption’.
Mr Miall said the heavy snowfall would begin to ease later on Saturday, creating the risk of slippery conditions and icy roads and pavements, and urged people to check weather updates.
‘It’s hard to get the exact messaging correct because the advice from the Government is to stay at home to protect ourselves from the virus but obviously people are still able to go out for essentials,’ he said.
‘A snow event could cause significant disruption to even those essential trips that people need to make, so we are advising the public to stay up to date with the latest information on the warnings as the weather develops.’
Temperatures will remain chilly on Saturday afternoon, hitting highs on only 2C in the east of England. Conditions will be slightly warmer in South West England, which could see highs of 10C or 11C.
Mr Miall said snow will be followed by rain, with the weather becoming wetter going into Monday and Tuesday before another cold spell later in the week.
The warnings follow severe snow on Friday which brought much of Yorkshire grinding to a halt.
Over-80s who were due to receive their Covid-19 vaccine were told they could rebook rather than risk making a trip in the icy conditions while schools were closed and public transport suspended.
Emergency services were called to four separate incidents within a matter of hours on Friday morning.
Northumbria Police said 17 vehicles were involved in a succession of crashes on a stretch of the Coast Road in North Tyneside.
Freezing fog patches and plummeting temperatures also led to a loss of gas supply to approximately 700 homes in the Hebden Bridge area.
In Bottesford, Leicestershire, cars made their way through a flooded road and the River Roding in Essex burst its banks.
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