by The coldest January temperatures for 14 years could hit the UK this evening, the Met Office has reported, as temperatures could drop to -15C overnight.
Yellow weather warnings for snow and ice remain in place across the country as the Met Office warns of travel delays, power cuts and injuries due to the cold weather. The warnings are in place until Thursday.
Scotland, northern Ireland and northern England are expected to be the worst affected and other areas will be affected during the week.
Snow-covered parts of Scotland could reach minus 15C on Tuesday night.
Freezing temperatures and snow will continue across much of Britain this week due to cold Arctic air ahead of “potentially disruptive” stormy weather at the weekend.
The last time temperatures fell this low was January 2010, when minus 22.3C was recorded.
A Met Office spokesman said the conditions would turn “stormy” in the coming days.
She said the continued low temperatures were due to the “long nature” of the cold spell which is unusual for this type of weather, as they don’t last more than three to five days under normal conditions.
“The air is coming straight from the Arctic, so it’s very cold air,” she said.
“It’s going to stay cold until Friday, and then looking further into the weekend we have some deep low pressure areas pushing in, so a big change in the weather pattern, and we could see some stormy conditions by the end of the week.
“The cold doesn’t really last until the end of the week, but we have a very different type of weather coming in that could affect it.”
The weather is forecast to be stormy on Sunday, she said.
More than 120 schools were forced to close in Scotland on Tuesday as its justice secretary confirmed they had almost “500,000 tonnes of salt available” to deal with the heavy snowfall.
The Met Office said the country was currently in the grip of a “cold plunge of Arctic air” which has moved south across the entire country in recent days, making it 5C to 6C lower than normal. for this time of year.
Met Office forecaster Craig Snell predicted temperatures could drop as low as -15C in parts of the UK on Tuesday night, as he said people should “definitely” expect a very cold spell into Wednesday.
Police services dealt with multiple incidents across the UK on Tuesday morning after the RAC reported its busiest start to the week of the winter with 20 burglary calls every minute.
Merseyside Police’s Roads Policing Unit said it was dealing with “a number of incidents” on the roads on Tuesday morning as a result of the snow, while Lancashire Roads Police said its staff were responding to an “influx” of crashes. throughout the county.
As the UK’s Health Security Agency issued an amber cold health alert for the whole of England, emergency weather plans were put in place for homeless people across West Northamptonshire.
The Council enacted their Severe Weather Emergency Protocol (SWEP) and everyone we knew was sleeping outside somewhere warm and dry to stay overnight.
An amber alert means that the impact of the cold weather is likely to be felt across the entire health service for a longer period, and the whole population may be at risk.
The horror also caused havoc for the National Hunt racing which was abandoned on Tuesday due to frozen ground. With parts of the track frozen and sub-zero temperatures forecast for the rest of the week, the course will need to be inspected to ensure it is safe ahead of races over the weekend.
More than 40cm of snow could be seen on high ground in north-west Scotland by the end of Friday with it continuing to increase over the next few days, the Met Office said.
Meanwhile, lower ground in north-west Scotland could see between five and 10cm of snow by the end of the working week.
And although unlikely, there is a chance that a few centimeters of snow will fall on the very south of England this week.
The Met Office is reviewing the situation and any new warnings could be issued at short notice, she said.
Amy Fellows, national network manager at National Highways, said: “Freezing conditions present as many hazards as snow and ice, so take every step possible to understand your journey in advance and leave plenty of extra time when travelling, to prepare for the unexpected trip. .”
National Rail has warned that the winter weather could affect train journeys all week, with ScotRail saying services on the Highland Main Line route on Tuesday would be delayed by around 30 minutes.
