Snow sweeps across parts of the UK

A corridor of snow has swept across parts of the UK, with many people in south-east England seeing their first fall of the winter.

The band of snow moved through western Scotland, north-west England, the Midlands, and south-east England.

Parts of rural Scotland dropped to -10C (14F) for a second night.

The weather has caused flight delays at Manchester and Gatwick airports, while police warned drivers to take care in the icy and snowy conditions.

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The band of snow 100 miles (160km) wide brought heavy falls on higher ground and up to an inch and a half (4cm) in some lower-lying areas, while other places just saw a light dusting.

BBC Weather’s Ben Rich said the snow was not expected to stay around at low levels for too long, as milder air from the west pushed in.

He said overnight temperatures in Kinbrace in the Scottish Highlands fell to -11.8C (10.8F).

Manchester Airport said operations were suspended for about an hour while snow was cleared from a second runway and a small defect was repaired on runway one.

“Runway two wasn’t pre cleared of snow as it is not normally in operation on a Sunday,” a spokesman said.

And air traffic control restrictions and the need to de-ice aircraft resulted in some delays at Gatwick.

In Scotland, all five snow sports centres have been able to open their slopes for skiing and snowboarding.

Climbers and hill walkers, however, were warned that the risk of avalanches in Scotland’s highest hills and mountains was “considerable”.

A 24-year-old man was injured in a snowboarding accident in England’s Lake District on Saturday.

Seventeen rescuers were called out to the Keppel Cove area near Helvellyn mountain, and had to wade through snow drifts above waist height to get to the man.

A coastguard helicopter had to turn back because of bad weather, and the man was pulled off the fells on a sledge before being taken to hospital.

Ice warnings

Temperatures fell sharply after dark on Saturday evening, allowing icy patches to form on untreated surfaces, especially where there had been showers.

Fresh warnings of ice have now been issued for Sunday night and into Monday morning for most of Scotland, north-west and north-east England, and the Yorkshire and Humber region. Snow warnings are also in force for the same period for Strathclyde, and Central, Tayside and Fife.

The outlook for Sunday shows an east-west divide in the UK, with cold, dry and sunny weather in the east.

The west will be milder, cloudy, with outbreaks of rain and increasingly strong winds. A Met Office spokesman said: “You can almost cut the UK in half along the Pennines, with temperatures in the South West reaching up to 10C (50F), 8C (46F) in Northern Ireland and between 6C (42F) and 7C (44F) in the west of Scotland.”