UK weather: ‘Snow showers’ set to hit parts of UK as Met Office issues yellow warning for ice

“A mix of snow showers and sleet” is forecast for parts of the UK as a yellow warning for ice comes into effect in the early hours of today, the Met Office has said.

London and the South East are covered by the warning that comes into force at 4am until 10am today.

The forecaster warned of ice patches, wintry showers and “temperatures near zero” which are likely to affect roads and train services in parts of Greater London, Kent, Surrey, East Sussex and West Sussex.

A few places – mainly the North Downs in Sussex – could also see 1-3cm of snow as showers turn heavy.

It comes as an amber cold-health alert for the North West of England, West Midlands, East Midlands and South West of England is also in place through to noon on Friday.

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Issued by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and the Met Office, it means “cold weather impacts are likely to be felt across the whole health service for an extended period of time”.

Dr Agostinho Sousa, head of extreme events and health protection at UKHSA, said it is important to check the wellbeing of those “most vulnerable to the cold” over the next week.

Anyone with pre-existing medical conditions, or over the age of 65, has been warned to be especially cautious of the cold weather and to “heat the rooms where you spend most of your time”, the UKHSA said.

Many are still struggling to recover from the aftermath of Storm Henk last week, which caused widespread flooding and two deaths.

The Environmental Agency has warned that more than 1,800 properties have already flooded, with more properties expected to be affected.

Around 160 flood warnings and 150 flood alerts remain in place for England and Wales.

High waters impact family home

Debbie Carling, who lives in a cottage by the Thames in Chertsey, told Sky News she is increasingly worried about how high water levels are impacting her family home.

She has lived in the town for 17 years and said three out of four instances of heavy flooding have occurred in the last two years.

In 2014, the basement of her house completely flooded and she has since spent “a considerable amount of money” on an automated system to pump out flood waters.

The system has been pumping non-stop for over a week, she said.

Read more:
‘My home is ruined’
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UK Floods: Special Programme

“We’re at the top level now and we need it to start to recede quite quickly,” she added. “We’ve already put a lot of things into storage over the last few days.”

Government ‘asleep at the wheel’

On Sunday, Labour accused the government of being “asleep at the wheel” over flood warnings, with leader Sir Keir Starmer vowing to make flood defences “fit for purpose”, writing on social media that “people’s lives shouldn’t be upended by extreme rain”.

But Rishi Sunak defended the government’s record on flood protection, saying 49,000 people had avoided potential ruin.

“We have over 1,000 Environment Agency personnel on the ground in local communities helping, over 200 pumps have been deployed,” he said, after travelling to Oxfordshire to meet members of the public who have been affected.

“We’ve invested £5.2bn in flood defences over the period in question, that’s a record sum, far more than we’ve done (previously), in the future that’s contributed to protecting over 300,000 homes.”

It followed the announcement of a new government financial package for eligible areas of the UK that have faced exceptional localised flooding.