BIG FREEZE
Ice alert and more snow chaos on way
SNOW and heavy rain will continue to batter Britain today and tomorrow, with fears another Beast from the East could arrive by the end of the month.
Last night, as downpours persisted, 134 flood alerts were issued by the Environment Agency. And the Met Office posted a yellow warning for hazardous ice across Scotland and most of England until tomorrow, with heavy snow expected to return to the North.
The warnings came as snow and icy rain swept across the country yesterday, even disrupting courts and delaying Covid vaccinations.
Hundreds of youngsters joined a mass snowball fight in Leeds, breaching Covid restrictions.
Drivers battled through deep falls in the North-east and Yorkshire, where a bus was sent spinning down a snowcovered hill in Halifax.
While in Leicester and Essex motorists inched along flooded roads.
Health chiefs warned older people not to travel to Newcastle’s Centre for Life for their virus vaccinations because of the treacherous conditions.
Trials were disrupted when jurors were prevented from reaching Sheffield Crown Court. Temperatures plunged to -5.5C in North Yorkshire yesterday morning and down to -6.4C in Dalwhinnie in the Highlands.
The frosty outlook has led to fears of another Beast from the East terrorising the country by the end of the month, hauling bitterly cold gusts from Siberia which were last seen in 2018.
The Met Office said unsettled conditions are likely to last into next week. “They will push south and are likely to go down to the Midlands but becoming less intense,” it said.