A RARE amber warning for snow is in place TODAY as a -14C freeze hits – with travel chaos and power cuts “likely”.
Amber and yellow warnings for snow and ice have been issued by the Met Office across Scotland and coastal areas in England and Wales on Thursday.
An amber warning for snow is currently in place in northern Scotland, the Orkney and Shetland Islands until 6pm on Thursday, with the potential of up to 20cm more snowfall.
Parts of Shetland already saw around 23 to 24cm of snow on Wednesday, while snowfall even reached the far south-east of England.
Other parts of Scotland and Northern Ireland have a yellow snow and ice warning spanning the whole of Thursday.
Meanwhile the north and northwest of the UK are likely to see further wintry outbreaks over the next 24 hours.
Separate, shorter snow and ice warnings have also been issued for Wales and south-west England, from 10pm on Wednesday to 11am on Thursday, and in eastern England from 1am to midday on Thursday, as both areas could see wintry showers that lead to icy patches.
A final yellow ice warning for south-east England, in particular south-east London, will run until 10am on Thursday.
Marco Petagna, meteorologist at the Met Office, said: “At the moment we’ve got a northernly air flow and with the sea temperatures being about eight to 12 degrees there is that extra energy around the coasts and that northern wind to get the showers pushing down.
“Because the land temperatures are below freezing there’s not the energy there for the showers to develop, so most of the showers are feeding down in that northernly flow into areas exposed to northerly winds.
“That’s why Scotland, Northern Ireland and the east and west coasts of the UK are seeing most of the showers.”
Conditions will be clearer with more sunshine inland on Thursday and very cold by night under clear skies, Mr Petagna said.
While another frosty night is forecast into Friday it will be breezier with more cloud in places, but lows of minus 10C will again be likely in some areas.
Wind coming in from the Atlantic in the west will then take charge through Friday and into Saturday, bringing much milder, wet and windy weather for the weekend.
It comes after the UK had its coldest night of the winter so far which forced hundreds of schools in Scotland to stay closed.
