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All of the Met Office weather warnings for rain, ice and snow across the UK
There are, at the time of writing, six weather warnings in place across the UK. According to the Met Office, there are five yellow weather warnings and one amber. Here’s how it looks:
Amber weather warning:
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East Midlands, South West England, Wales, West Midlands, Yorkshire and Humber – an amber weather warning for snow is in place until 9am Friday affecting: Derby, Derbyshire, Leicester, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, Rutland, Gloucestershire, Blaenau Gwent, Caerphilly, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, Conwy, Denbighshire, Flintshire, Gwynedd, Merthyr Tydfil, Monmouthshire, Powys, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Torfaen, Wrexham, Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Telford and Wrekin, Warwickshire, West Midlands Conurbation, Worcestershire, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire.
Yellow weather warnings:
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Wales – A yellow weather warning for rain is in place until 10am Friday affecting: Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, Neath Port Talbot, Pembrokeshire and Swansea.
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Northern Ireland – A yellow weather warning for ice is in place until 11am Friday affecting: County Antrim, County Armagh, County Down, County Fermanagh, County Derry and County Tyrone.
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East Midlands, East of England, London and South East England, North East England, North West England, South West England, Wales, West Midlands, Yorkshire and Humber – A yellow weather warning for snow is in place until 12pm Friday affecting: Derby, Derbyshire, Leicester, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, Rutland, Bedford, Cambridgeshire, Central Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Luton, Peterborough, Buckinghamshire, Milton Keynes, Oxfordshire, West Berkshire, Durham, Northumberland, Cheshire East, Cheshire West and Chester, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol, Gloucestershire, North Somerset, Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Swindon, Wiltshire, Blaenau Gwent, Bridgend, Caerphilly, Cardiff, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, Conwy, Denbighshire, Flintshire, Gwynedd, Merthyr Tydfil, Monmouthshire, Neath Port Talbot, Newport, Pembrokeshire, Powys, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Torfaen, Wrexham, Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Stoke-on-Trent, Telford and Wrekin, Warwickshire, West Midlands Conurbation, Worcestershire, North Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire.
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Central, Tayside and Fife, Grampian, Highlands and Eilean Siar, North East England, North West England, Orkney and Shetland, South West Scotland, Lothian Borders, Strathclyde and Yorkshire and Humber – A yellow weather warning for snow and ice is in place until 12pm Friday affecting: Angus, Clackmannanshire, Dundee, Falkirk, Fife, Perth and Kinross, Stirling, Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Moray, Na h-Eileanan Siar, Highland, Darlington, Durham, Gateshead, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Newcastle upon Tyne, North Tyneside, Northumberland, Redcar and Cleveland, South Tyneside, Stockton-on-Tees, Sunderland, Cumbria, Orkney Islands, Shetland Islands, Dumfries and Galloway, East Lothian, Edinburgh, Midlothian Council, Scottish Borders, West Lothian, East Ayrshire, East Dunbartonshire, East Renfrewshire, Glasgow, North Lanarkshire, South Lanarkshire and North Yorkshire.
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East Midlands, East of England, Yorkshire and Humber – A yellow weather warning for rain is in place until 9pm Friday affecting: Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Peterborough, Suffolk, North East Lincolnshire and North Lincolnshire.
Key events
More than 45,000 properties were without power in south-west England just before 9am on Friday, according to the National Grid’s website, while about 17,000 had no power in the West Midlands, more than 700 had no power in the East Midlands and more than 600 were without power in Wales.
As reported earlier around 8am, 147,983 properties had been restored across south-west England, the Midlands, and south Wales.
More travel updates are rolling in, per the PA news agency:
A number of East Midlands Railway (EMR) services will be affected by snow on Friday.
EMR said the Hope Valley, the line between Sheffield and Manchester, will be closed all day. A number of other lines, including between Nottingham and Lincoln and between Leicester and Nottingham, will be closed until after 10am on Friday.
The train operator said
Please check your journey before travelling today. Heavy snowfall has impacted our regional routes with some services starting later than usual.
Network Rail has said “very intense heavy snow” hit the West Midlands, Shropshire and Staffordshire areas on Thursday night, while the West Country and Wales saw high winds.
Workers with chainsaws and snowploughs are being used to help railway staff clear routes in those regions.
Passengers are advised not to travel by train in Birmingham and surrounding areas until at least midday. Some lines in the region may remain closed until Saturday.
There is severe disruption in Wales and no trains in Cornwall until midday on Friday.
Meanwhile, Derbyshire county council said some of the highest roads in the Peak District have been closed since last night.
The roads that remain closed on Friday morning are parts of the A57 Snake Pass, the A54/A537 Cat and Fiddle, the A6024 Holme Moss, the A53 Axe Edge and the A5004, Long Hill.
The council said:
Our fleet of gritters, fitted with snowploughs, have been out on the main roads all through the night. They will continue to do this throughout the day.
We won’t have been able to get to any smaller roads so far. In the north of the county, where we closed five of our highest roads last night, we’ll go and take a look at those later this morning.
Senay Boztas
It’s not just the UK that has been struggling with cold conditions, weather warnings and travel disruption, as Senay Boztas reports from the Netherlands:
A week-long winter cold snap that would once have been normal in the Netherlands has caused more than 2,000 flight cancellations, chaos on roads and railways, buildings to partially collapse, and a stream of angry cyclists asking why roads seem better gritted than cycle lanes.
Since Saturday, up to 15cm of snow has fallen across the country, with temperatures of -10C (14F) including wind chill, sparking angry commentary over how some nations manage months of snow but the Netherlands, no longer used to it, appears paralysed.
According to the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), snow is becoming less frequent as the climate crisis bites. In 1961, there was snow cover on an average of 23 days a year at the institute’s weather station at De Bilt, near Utrecht; now, it is just three days a year.
Wiebe Wieling is a former chair of the Elfstedentocht (11 cities tour) Association, which tries to organise an outdoor ice skating race on natural ice across 11 Friesian cities if the ice is thick enough, something that has not happened since 1997. He said:
We just don’t have the winters that we had in the 20th century. It’s not only my frustration. It’s a Dutch frustration. It’s a climate frustration.
So when snow does come, like it did this week, some worry that Dutch people have forgotten how to cope with it.
“Yesterday, I was walking along an important cycle route to various schools in Rotterdam,” an environmental consultant, Vincent Luyendijk, said on social media, sharing photos of children forced into the middle of traffic. “I was blue in the face with frustration.”
Power has been restored to 147,983 properties across the south-west, Midlands, and south Wales after Storm Goretti disrupted access to some sites on Thursday evening, National Grid said.
It said teams will “continue to work tirelessly” throughout the day on Friday to restore power to the remaining properties without power.
Fresh snow and ice warnings issued for Scotland and northern England for much of Sunday
Fresh weather warnings for snow and ice have been issued by the Met Office for much of Scotland and the north of England on Sunday.
A yellow warning covering large parts of Scotland, the East and West Midlands, north-east and north-west England and Yorkshire will come into force at 2am on Sunday, expected to run until 3pm.
All of the Met Office weather warnings for rain, ice and snow across the UK
There are, at the time of writing, six weather warnings in place across the UK. According to the Met Office, there are five yellow weather warnings and one amber. Here’s how it looks:
Amber weather warning:
-
East Midlands, South West England, Wales, West Midlands, Yorkshire and Humber – an amber weather warning for snow is in place until 9am Friday affecting: Derby, Derbyshire, Leicester, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, Rutland, Gloucestershire, Blaenau Gwent, Caerphilly, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, Conwy, Denbighshire, Flintshire, Gwynedd, Merthyr Tydfil, Monmouthshire, Powys, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Torfaen, Wrexham, Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Telford and Wrekin, Warwickshire, West Midlands Conurbation, Worcestershire, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire.
Yellow weather warnings:
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Wales – A yellow weather warning for rain is in place until 10am Friday affecting: Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, Neath Port Talbot, Pembrokeshire and Swansea.
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Northern Ireland – A yellow weather warning for ice is in place until 11am Friday affecting: County Antrim, County Armagh, County Down, County Fermanagh, County Derry and County Tyrone.
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East Midlands, East of England, London and South East England, North East England, North West England, South West England, Wales, West Midlands, Yorkshire and Humber – A yellow weather warning for snow is in place until 12pm Friday affecting: Derby, Derbyshire, Leicester, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, Rutland, Bedford, Cambridgeshire, Central Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Luton, Peterborough, Buckinghamshire, Milton Keynes, Oxfordshire, West Berkshire, Durham, Northumberland, Cheshire East, Cheshire West and Chester, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol, Gloucestershire, North Somerset, Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Swindon, Wiltshire, Blaenau Gwent, Bridgend, Caerphilly, Cardiff, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, Conwy, Denbighshire, Flintshire, Gwynedd, Merthyr Tydfil, Monmouthshire, Neath Port Talbot, Newport, Pembrokeshire, Powys, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Torfaen, Wrexham, Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Stoke-on-Trent, Telford and Wrekin, Warwickshire, West Midlands Conurbation, Worcestershire, North Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire.
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Central, Tayside and Fife, Grampian, Highlands and Eilean Siar, North East England, North West England, Orkney and Shetland, South West Scotland, Lothian Borders, Strathclyde and Yorkshire and Humber – A yellow weather warning for snow and ice is in place until 12pm Friday affecting: Angus, Clackmannanshire, Dundee, Falkirk, Fife, Perth and Kinross, Stirling, Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Moray, Na h-Eileanan Siar, Highland, Darlington, Durham, Gateshead, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Newcastle upon Tyne, North Tyneside, Northumberland, Redcar and Cleveland, South Tyneside, Stockton-on-Tees, Sunderland, Cumbria, Orkney Islands, Shetland Islands, Dumfries and Galloway, East Lothian, Edinburgh, Midlothian Council, Scottish Borders, West Lothian, East Ayrshire, East Dunbartonshire, East Renfrewshire, Glasgow, North Lanarkshire, South Lanarkshire and North Yorkshire.
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East Midlands, East of England, Yorkshire and Humber – A yellow weather warning for rain is in place until 9pm Friday affecting: Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Peterborough, Suffolk, North East Lincolnshire and North Lincolnshire.
Cornwall council advised residents to avoid travelling on Friday morning. It said:
Roads and public transport remain disrupted this morning as we deal with the aftermath of Storm Goretti. Please avoid travelling if you can.
It added:
A large number of roads are still closed due to fallen trees, downed power lines and debris.
Our teams are working around the clock to clear them, and we ask that you give crews the space they need to carry out urgent repairs safely.
Birmingham airport and East Midlands reopen but warn of reduced service and delays
Birmingham airport said its runway has reopened with a reduced service but urged passengers to check the status of their flight with their airline. It said:
Our runway has reopened on a reduced basis, and our teams are working to get passengers away as efficiently as possible.
Whilst we apologise for any inconvenience Storm Goretti has caused, the safety of our colleagues and customers is our number one priority
Passengers due to travel are advised to check the status of their flight with their airline.
East Midlands airport has also reopened. The airport said:
Following a temporary runway closure this morning due to heavy snow, our runway is now back open and flights have resumed. However, there may be some delays throughout the day.
Travel disrupted across the UK
Here are some of the latest travel disruption updates, courtesy of the PA news agency:
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Transport for Wales said it will not run services on the majority of its routes on Friday. They include: Llandudno Junction to Llandudno; Llandudno Junction to Blaenau Ffestiniog; Wrexham to Bidston; Craven Arms to Swansea (via Heart of Wales Line); west of Carmarthen; Maesteg to Ebbw; Hereford to Shrewsbury; Shrewsbury to Birmingham International; and Shrewsbury to Aberystwyth.
Its other routes will have a reduced service all day. -
Services on the West Midlands Metro tram network were unable to operate in Birmingham on Friday morning due to a fallen tree. A statement issued by the network said: “Due to fallen trees along our tram line, no service is running between Wednesbury Great Western and Edgbaston Village.” The closure means trams are operating between Wolverhampton Station and Wednesbury Great Western only.
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Bus operator National Express West Midlands said all services were suspended until at least 8.30am “due to difficult road conditions and low temperatures”.
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Chiltern Railways, which plans to operate around half of its normal timetable, said it was not running services north of Birmingham Moor Street or on the line to Stratford-upon-Avon. Stations at Hatton, Lapworth, Kings Sutton, Sudbury Hill Harrow, Sudbury & Harrow Road and South Ruislip will also not be served today.
Rail replacement buses will not be in operation, Chiltern said in a statement on its website. -
Avanti West Coast said “do not travel” advice is in place on its Midlands routes until 1pm on Friday. The train operator, which runs services on the West Coast Main Line, said: “An amended timetable will operate across all routes from 0700 until 1500, when we currently expect services to return to normal. We strongly recommend travelling outside these times if possible.”
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National Highways said three out of four northbound lanes of the M1 motorway are closed between Junction 28 for Mansfield and Junction 29 for Chesterfield after a crash involving a lorry. Recovery of the lorry has started and specialised winter fleet vehicles are en route to clear snow which has settled in the closed lanes. Drivers face delays of up to half an hour as congestion stretches for four miles.
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National Highways said the A628 Woodhead Pass connecting Greater Manchester and South Yorkshire remains closed in both directions between the A616 for Flouch and the A57 for Hollingworth because of snow. Drivers are advised to use the M60, M62 and M1 as an alternative route.
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National Highways said the A30 in Cornwall is closed in both directions between the A394 for Longrock and the A3074 for Longstone because of “a large number of fallen trees that are blocking the road”. It added that specialist crews are working to clear the trees from the carriageway.
Isles of Scilly residents requested to stay home as emergency services deal with widespread disruption
The Council of the Isles of Scilly has released an update this morning after “violent gusts” hit parts of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly on Thursday.
Its teams and the emergency services are still dealing with widespread disruption from Storm Goretti this morning, including blocked roads, unstable structures and causes of power failures, the update shared.
The council has asked residents to stay at home unless their journey is essential in order to “keep the community safe” and make the clean up task easier. It also recommends parents and carers to monitor their emails and school social media profiles for the latest updates about school attendance.
It added:
Please take care, give emergency services and highways teams the space they need to carry out urgent repairs, and only travel if absolutely necessary.
Many schools in Scotland closed for fifth day as wintry weather continues
Many schools will remain closed for a fifth day on Friday as Scotland remains gripped by continued wintry weather, reports the PA news agency.
The Met Office has issued a yellow warning of snow and ice covering much of Scotland which came into force at 8pm and runs until midday on Friday.
More than 250 schools are due to remain closed on Friday, including more than 150 in Aberdeenshire, dozens in the Highlands and Aberdeen, and a number in Moray.
Many pupils will have had a whole week off school at the start of the new term, though remote learning has been provided in many cases.
It comes after several days of “intense” snowfall, ice and sub-zero temperatures which have led to school closures and travel disruption, mainly in the north of the country.
Scotland’s first minister John Swinney will visit the Aberdeen western peripheral route (AWPR) Amey depot in Aberdeen on Friday to hear about recovery efforts as part of the wider response to the severe weather in northern Scotland.
A total of 278 schools were closed on Thursday across northern Scotland, or about 11% of the school estate – down on the 440 that were closed on Wednesday.
More travel updates: Ferry operator DFDS said all its sailings between Dover and France are disrupted.
It said:
All services are currently operating with delays due to strong winds in the Channel.
Please check-in as normal, we will transfer all passengers on to the first available sailing on arrival.
Apologies for any inconvenience caused.
Two rail networks suspend services in England
West Midlands Railway said it has suspended all services. It said:
We are unable to operate any services until the afternoon.
No rail replacement road transport is being provided because of “uncertain road conditions”, it added.
London Northwestern Railway said it has suspended services between Birmingham New Street and Liverpool Lime Street until Friday afternoon. Its services between Birmingham New Street and London Euston are reduced.
British Airways cancels dozens of flights at Heathrow
British Airways has cancelled 25 departures and 27 arrivals scheduled to operate at London’s Heathrow airport on Friday.
The vast majority of affected flights were on short-haul routes, reports the PA news agency.
We have an update on Birmingham airport, which suspended its runway operations on Thursday evening due to heavy snow (see 5.42am GMT).
In a statement on Friday morning, Birmingham airport said its runway remains closed but it has resumed processing passengers through security. It said:
Our teams are completing final snow clearance and safety checks on the airfield.
Runway operations are still suspended at this time however passenger security processing has commenced.
We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause however the safety of our colleagues and customers is our number one priority. Passengers due to travel should contact their airline regarding the status of flights.
