Snow has fallen as far south as London and across other parts of the UK after the Met Office issued a weather warning for icy conditions as a cold snap gripped the country following last week’s spring sunshine.
Following last week’s highs of 20C (68F), a cold snap has moved in across the UK with temperatures forecast to top 10C (50F) heading into the weekend.
The Met Office earlier issued a yellow weather warning for ice covering a large swathe of eastern Scotland, northeast England and Yorkshire until 10am on Thursday.
However, light snowfall has been spotted as far south of the UK as London this morning as temperatures pafter plummeted overnight.
⚠️ Yellow weather warning updated⚠️
Ice across eastern parts of Scotland and England
In place until Thursday 1000
Latest info 👉 https://t.co/QwDLMfRBfs
Stay #WeatherAware⚠️ pic.twitter.com/6KXFZPCmIY
It states that “snow and hail showers could lead to icy surfaces, with possible travel disruption”.
Meteorologist Matty Box said that there was currently a “cold air mass” over the UK and warned that more weather warnings could be issued for Friday morning.
“There is an ice warning out at the moment,” he said. “If there’s any melt and it refreezes overnight then there’s an ice risk.
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“I suspect there will be a similar risk for Thursday night to Friday morning.”
Mr Box added that there could be a likely occurrence of snow over Thursday night and Friday morning as well.
“It will be concentrated and there will be snow showers”, he said.
“It will be eastern and northern areas of the UK that are more likely to see any showers of rain, sleet or snow.”
The weather will then improve over the weekend, with some sunny spells.
London.. our sky in Devon blue and it’s sunny and everywhere else seems to have snow.. looks pretty though #weather #snow pic.twitter.com/Gk5Cs0DJOI
He added: “Showers will become less frequent, but still with the chance of some wintry showers effects in the east coast and the North Sea coast in particular through Saturday.
“There should be a fair amount of sunshine as well with sunny spells in between.”
Temperatures fell below freezing on Wednesday night through to Thursday morning, prompting councils to issue emergency protocols to deal with the swift change.
Meanwhile, councils in Newcastle City, North Tyneside and Gateshead all introduced their severe weather emergency protocols on Wednesday night – offering services to help people who are sleeping rough.