More travel chaos ahead as snow and ice set to continue

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Weather warnings for snow and ice will remain in force for many parts of Britain into Tuesday morning, as forecasters predicted the coldest night of the year for the second day running.

It comes after travellers faced travel chaos on Monday, as much of the UK struggled with ice, fog and snow.

The Met Office has issued an ice warning for large parts of southeast England, including London and Brighton, until 11am. A snow and ice warning covering northern Scotland and northeast England is in force until noon on Thursday.

Met Office spokesperson Oli Claydon said there would be heavy snow in some places again on Tuesday. He said there could be “as much as 15 to 20 centimetres of snow accumulating over high ground”.

Mr Claydon said northern Scotland could record even colder temperatures on Tuesday after breaking the record for the coldest night of the year on Monday.

“In terms of temperature, we could see another very cold night, especially in parts of Scotland where we’ve got that lying snow,” he said. “We saw minus 15C last night. We could see similar or potentially even colder tonight under clear skies, with that snowfall lying in some places.”

Rod Dennis from the RAC said the organisation’s teams were “exceptionally busy” on Monday, helping more than 7,500 motorists with breakdowns. He added that this figure was 50 per cent higher than the RAC would normally see on a typical Monday in December.

Drivers on northern sections of the M25 were stranded for several hours as traffic was at a standstill. The UK’s busiest motorway was closed in both directions on Monday morning between Junction 23 for South Mimms and Junction 25 for Waltham Cross in Hertfordshire.

National Highways said the closure was caused by “snow and jackknifed lorries”. Other roads in the area suffering long delays included the M11, M2, A21, A27 and A249.

National Highways said it had up to 25 gritters treating the M25 on Sunday and overnight into Monday, with 960 tonnes of salt and more than 18,000 litres of anti-freeze being distributed.

More than 300 flights due to serve UK airports were cancelled across Sunday and Monday, with Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, Stansted and Bristol among the airports affected.

Meanwhile, engineers were hopeful that the remaining 200 Sheffield households that had endured more than a week without gas during the freezing weather would be reconnected overnight.

Almost 2,000 homes in the Stannington and Malin Bridge areas of the city lost their gas supply 10 days ago when a burst water main filled the local gas network with more than a million litres of water.