UK weather: more snow and ice warnings as Aberdeenshire drops to -17C

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Snow and ice weather warnings have been extended across the UK after the record for the coldest night of the year so far was broken for the second night in a row.

The Met Office has extended a yellow snow and ice warning covering northern Scotland and north-east England until noon on Friday.

Snow and ice warnings are in place in south-east England from 6pm on Tuesday until 10am on Wednesday. An ice warning is in place in eastern England from 3pm on Tuesday until noon on Wednesday.

The forecaster has also added a yellow ice warning in northern parts of Northern Ireland, including Belfast and Derry from noon on Tuesday until noon on Wednesday. Northern Ireland is experiencing freezing fog.

Braemer in Aberdeenshire was the coldest place in the UK on Tuesday night, recording a low of -17.3C, breaking Monday’s record of -15.7C.

The next coldest temperature on Tuesday night was also recorded in Aberdeenshire, at -14.9C in Balmoral.

Scores of schools across the country have been forced to close for a second day due to the cold weather, for reasons including heating failure, burst pipes and snow and ice.

The RAC experienced its biggest day for breakdowns on record. RAC Breakdown’s Rod Dennis said: “Yesterday was officially our busiest day for breakdowns on record, with around 12,000 drivers needing help, the equivalent of eight every minute of the day. Even our busiest day during the infamous ‘beast from the east’ in 2018 didn’t see as many people breaking down.

“We believe two key ingredients have combined to create the worst-ever winter breakdown cocktail – a sustained period of cold weather with an absence of widespread snow that would otherwise keep people indoors, and a big rise in the number of drivers who can’t afford to maintain their vehicles as well as they’d like to due to the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis.

“Today remains an incredibly demanding day for our patrols, with the rail strikes likely to force yet more people on to the roads.”

Travel disruption continued on Tuesday, with icy roads making conditions difficult. The Met Office said there would be icy stretches on untreated roads, pavements, and cycle paths due to the thawing of snow left over from Monday.

Commuters faced travel disruption on Monday as large parts of the UK were hit by ice, fog and snow. Drivers on northern sections of the M25 were stranded for several hours as traffic came to a standstill.

National Highways said it had up to 25 gritters treating the M25 at any one time on Sunday and overnight in to Monday. They spread 960 tonnes of salt and more than 18,000 litres of anti-freeze.

A report from the Local Government Association (LGA) published last week found that nearly two-thirds of councils in England were worried they could not recruit enough HGV drivers to run their gritting lorries this winter.

“As this survey shows, councils along with many other organisations have had continued difficulties in recruiting new HGV drivers,” a spokesperson for the LGA said.

“As well as this, fast-inflating HGV driver salaries in the private sector exacerbates issues in the public sector, with the rises creating a retention as well as a recruitment problem for councils and their contractors.

“To ensure gritting lorries can get out to treat roads and pavements this winter, councils have been retraining and redeploying existing staff as well as making use of short term agency workers.”

Darren Clark, severe weather resilience manager at National Highways, said it had sent out the appropriate number of gritters to deal with the roads on Monday.

“We started the autumn and winter season with around 280,000 tonnes of salt stockpiled at our depots and yesterday we used 12,000 tonnes across our network in view of the current weather conditions. We can call upon 530 gritters in our fleet and we sent out the appropriate number to treat the roads in accordance with the conditions in different areas of our network.”

The transport secretary, Mark Harper, defended the response of the highways authorities to the cold snap, after motorists were left stranded on the M25.

He told LBC Radio on Tuesday: “My understanding, having listened to what National Highways have said, is a very significant amount of gritting did take place. But of course, that doesn’t mean that you can deal with the consequences of the fact that it was a very severe cold snap and there was heavy snow across the country.”

He added that staff at National Highways had worked “incredibly hard” to try to keep the roads moving.