New Year’s Eve celebrations across the UK have been cancelled as the country braces for a wet and windy start to 2025. 

Outdoor events planned for 31 December as part of Edinburgh’s Hogmanay will not take place, while celebrations on the 30th were also cancelled.

A spokesperson said events in the city centre of the Scottish capital, including fireworks from the castle, are unable to go ahead “on the grounds of public safety” due to “high winds and inclement weather”.

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Meanwhile, organisers of a planned fireworks display in Blackpool said it has also been cancelled due to the weather.

Visit Blackpool said only the pyrotechnics have been affected, with the rest of the New Year’s Eve Family Party to continue as planned, including free ice skating and a projection light show.

Another fireworks event in Ripon, North Yorkshire, also succumbed to the weather, with the council posting on Facebook that the event planned to take place in the city’s Market Square could not go ahead due to high winds.

While a homemade boat race in Poole in Dorset, a sea dip in Lyme Regis in the same south coast county, as well as fireworks displays on the Isle of Wight and on Newcastle’s Quayside, were all cancelled on Tuesday morning.

In the capital, London’s City Hall said it is “monitoring the weather” ahead of tonight’s celebrations.

It is understood there are currently no plans to cancel any New Year’s Eve events in London, which includes the annual fireworks display at the London Eye on the South Bank of the River Thames.

Rain, wind and snow warnings

Four separate weather warnings cover Scotland on Tuesday alone, including an amber warning for rain covering the regions of Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey.

The Met Office said showers are expected to continue into the afternoon, with an additional 50-70mm of rain to fall.

The Scottish Environmental Protection Agency did downgrade the risk of flooding in Highlands communities after less rain fell overnight than expected, but 31 warnings and 10 flood alerts remain in place at the time of writing on Tuesday morning.

Flood warnings were also issued for parts of North Yorkshire, where high tides and strong winds are expected to cause large waves. A further 11 flood alerts have been issued in England by the Environment Agency.

Glasgow and Edinburgh are also under a yellow warning for wind until 11pm, which the Met Office said could bring delays to road, rail, air and ferry transport.

Train operator ScotRail warned its services were being disrupted by speed restrictions due to “very heavy rainfall”.

At least 11 lines have been affected, according to the ScotRail website, and 18 trains were cancelled on Tuesday morning.

Network Rail said it closed the Highland Main Line at Kingussie because of “more extreme rainfall overnight”.

A yellow warning for rain and snow covering nearly the whole of the country is in place until midnight, while a warning for snow covers Orkney.

Parts of northern England are covered by a yellow warning for wind from 7am until 11pm on New Year’s Eve, with a separate wind warning covering Northern Ireland from 6am until 2pm.

A 24-hour yellow warning for rain will also come into force across much of Wales and northwest England from 6pm on Tuesday.

‘Tricky couple of days’

As the clock strikes midnight in the UK, separate warnings for wind and rain are in place for Wednesday.

Winds of up to 60mph are forecast across much of England and Wales all day on 1 January, with gusts of 75mph likely around coastal areas and hills, according to the Met Office.

The forecaster said the “whole of the UK will experience a change to colder conditions” on Thursday, with temperatures expected to fall below freezing, with the possibility of reaching minus double digits in some areas of Scotland.

A yellow weather warning for snow and ice comes into force from midnight until 9am on 2 January across parts of the Scottish Highlands.

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Met Office meteorologist Craig Snell said: “It will be a tricky couple of days and a wet and windy spell for many up into the new year.

“We’re encouraging anyone who is planning to travel to keep up to date with the weather forecast and news from their local authorities.”

Former England manager Gareth Southgate, London mayor Sadiq Khan and actor Stephen Fry have been knighted in the New Year Honours.

Others who have received honours include a host of Team GB athletes – among them gold medal-winning runner Keely Hodgkinson – as well as author Jacqueline Wilson and television presenter Alan Titchmarsh.

Honours have also been awarded to some of the wrongfully convicted sub-postmasters following the Horizon scandal.

Sir Gareth, who has been knighted for services to association football, led the England team to the finals of the Euros in 2020 and 2024, as well as the semi-final of the 2018 World Cup.

However, the Three Lions did not manage to win any tournaments under his leadership, and he resigned following their 2-1 final defeat to Spain in July.

His knighthood matches that earned by Sir Bobby Robson, the last England manager to take a team to the World Cup semis. Fifty-four-year-old Southgate declined to comment on the honour.

Sir Stephen, best known for appearing in Blackadder and hosting quiz show QI, has been recognised for services to mental health awareness, the environment and charity.

The actor has been president of mental health charity Mind since 2011 and also supported the conservation group Fauna and Flora International.

He said he was “startled and enchanted” after receiving a letter informing him of the knighthood, adding: “When you are recognised it does make you feel a bit ‘crikey’, but I think the most emotional thing is that when I think of my childhood, and my dreadful unhappiness and misery and stupidity, and everything that led to so many failures as a child.

“And for my parents, really, what a disaster. I mean every time the phone rang, they thought, ‘Oh, God, what has Stephen done now’. It was a sort of joke in the family.”

London mayor Sir Sadiq has been honoured for political and public service, having held his role since 2016.

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He said he was “humbled” to have received a knighthood and “couldn’t have dreamed when growing up on a council estate in south London that I would one day be mayor of London“.

“It’s the honour of my life to serve the city I love and I will continue to build the fairer, safer, greener and more prosperous London that all of the capital’s communities deserve,” he said.

Conservative London councillor Matthew Goodwin-Freeman launched a petition to “stop” the knighthood which surpassed 200,000 signatures earlier this month.

Beloved author Jacqueline Wilson, who created the Tracy Beaker series, has been made a Dame Grand Cross (GBE) for services to literature.

Actress Carey Mulligan and television presenter Alan Titchmarsh have become Commanders of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).

Nobel Prize-winning novelist Sir Kazuo Ishiguro is made a Companion of Honour for services to literature, actor Eddie Marsan is an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) and Myleene Klass becomes a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE).

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A number of gongs also went to athletes following this year’s Paris Olympics, where Team GB won 65 medals, and the Paralympics, where Team ParalympicsGB finished in second place with 49 gold medals.

Twenty-two-year-old Keely Hodgkinson earned an MBE after claiming gold in the 800m at the Olympics, setting a new British record of one minute 54.61 seconds, making her the sixth fastest woman at the distance in history.

Two-time Olympic champion Tom Pidcock, 25, has been made an OBE after winning gold in mountain biking, while Paralympian Hannah Cockroft becomes a CBE after coming first in the T34 100m and 800m.

Other honoured gold-medallists include swimmer Duncan Scott (OBE), sailor Ellie Aldridge (MBE) and rowers Lola Anderson, Hannah Scott, Lauren Henry and Georgie Brayshaw (all MBEs).

Former F1 driver and broadcaster Martin Brundle has become an OBE and former Scotland and Liverpool footballer and BBC pundit Alan Hansen is an MBE.

Sky News royal and events commentator Major General Alastair Bruce has been made a Companion of the Order of the Bath – an honour which recognises the work of senior military officials and civil servants.

Maj Gen Bruce served as an officer of the Scots Guards, including during the Falklands War. Earlier this year, he retired as governor of Edinburgh Castle, a position he had held since June 2019.

As a commentator for Sky News, he has covered numerous state events, including Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral in 2022 and the King’s coronation the following year. Most recently, he provided commentary for this year’s Remembrance Day events and the ceremony marking the restoration of Notre Dame in Paris.

Horizon IT scandal victims Lee Castleton, Jo Hamilton, Christopher Head and Seema Misra have been made OBEs for services to justice.

Politicians who received honours include Labour MP Emily Thornberry, who has become a dame, and former West Midlands mayor Andy Street, who has been knighted.

The oldest person on the list is 103-year-old World War Two Mosquito pilot Colin Bell, who was given a British Empire Medal (BEM) for charitable fundraising and public speaking.

The youngest to receive honours are 18-year-olds Mikayla Beames, given a BEM for her fundraising efforts supporting children with cancer, and para-swimmer William Ellard, made an MBE after winning gold in the S14 200m freestyle at the Paris Paralympics.

More than 1,200 people from across the UK received honours in the latest list.

It is 4am, on a chilly December morning.

Officers from West Midlands Police quietly approach a row of terraced houses in Birmingham.

Under the glow of a street light, one uses his battering ram to break down the front door of one of the houses.

As they file in, they are looking for a woman suspected of drug dealing – and her mobile phone.

They quickly find her in a bedroom and tell her “that phone is going to be seized because we believe it has evidence on it so if we think you’ve got potential to wipe that phone and we’re not going to allow that to happen”.

Back at force headquarters in central Birmingham, the force’s digital forensics manager Gavin Green tells me that they have seized more than 4,000 phones and computers for analysis in the last year alone.

The devices have helped them solve anything from shoplifting cases, to rapes and murders.

“In the past we were looking at the old fashioned Nokia burner type phones that had a limited amount of data but it’s developed – with a smart phone, you’re looking at a mini computer that holds a lot of personal data such as the location those people have been, you look at your iPhones for example you see the iOS updating on a near weekly, monthly basis so we have to stay abreast of those changes,” he said.

‘Help the cops on the frontline’

They tell me that 95% of crime they deal with now has an online connection – so they are expanding their digital forensics team – at a time when budgets are tight.

Chief Constable Craig Guildford stops by at the unit to explain why.

“The reality is since 2010 we’ve got 800 fewer officers in the West Midlands, more than anywhere else in the UK but we’re determined if we have a pound or ten pounds we do our very best for the public,” he said.

“It’s our job as senior leaders in the organisation to make those strategic decisions, make those investment decisions, bring new people, new blood into the organisation, apprentices, people more from the digital age that can help the cops on the frontline solve the crimes on behalf of the public.”

Aimee is one of the new recruits. Having recently graduated, she started with the unit in October.

She’s “triaging” the hard drive of a computer – looking for any files which would help her investigation.

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“We do a variety of crimes – kidnapping, robbery, burglary all that kind of stuff…but the main stuff is child abuse which obviously it can be very hard because it’s not nice seeing those kind of things”, said Aimee.

“It is very rewarding being able to help these children and put people away it’s really interesting work”.