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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 consecutive night.
The Met Office has extended a yellow snow and ice warning covering northern Scotland and north-east England until Friday afternoon.
Snow and ice warnings are in place for south-east England from 6pm on Tuesday until 10am on Wednesday. A snow warning has been issued for eastern England from 3pm on Tuesday until noon on Wednesday.
The forecaster has also added a yellow snow warning for northern parts of Northern Ireland, including Belfast and Derry, from Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday afternoon. There is freezing fog in Northern Ireland.
Braemar 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.
Many schools across the country have been forced to close for the next day due to cold weather, including heating failures, burst pipes and snow and ice.
RAC experienced the biggest day for breakdowns on record. Rod Dennis of RAC Breakdowns said: “Yesterday was officially our busiest day for breakdowns on record, with almost 12,000 drivers needing help, which is eight every minute of the day. Even our busiest day during the infamous ‘Beast from the East’ in 2018 didn’t see that many people breaking.
“We believe two key ingredients have combined to create the worst breakdown cocktail of the winter – a period of sustained cold weather combined with the absence of widespread snow that will keep people indoors, and a large increase in the number of drivers who can’t. Due to the pandemic and cost-of-living crisis, they can afford to maintain their vehicles as well as they want.
“Today has been an incredibly demanding day for our patrols, with the rail strike forcing even more people onto the road.”
Travel disruption continued on Tuesday, with icy roads making conditions difficult. The Met Office said there will be icy patches on untreated roads, pavements and cycle paths due to melting snow left over from Monday.
Commuters faced travel disruption on Monday as large parts of the UK were affected by snow, fog and ice. Drivers on northern sections of the M25 were stuck for several hours as traffic was brought to a standstill.
National Highways said it had up to 25 gritters traversing the M25 at any one time overnight into Sunday and Monday. They spread 960 tons of salt and more than 18,000 liters of anti-freeze.
A report by the Local Government Association (LGA) published last week found that almost two-thirds of councils in England are worried they will not be able to recruit enough HGV drivers to drive their lorries this winter.
“This survey shows that councils, along with many other organisations, continue to have difficulties recruiting new HGV drivers,” an LGA spokesperson said.
“At the same time, fast-rising HGV driver pay in the private sector exacerbates problems in the public sector, which in turn creates retention and recruitment problems for councils and their contractors.
“To ensure gravel lorries can get out to treat roads and pavements this winter, the council is retraining and redeploying existing staff as well as using short-term agency workers.”
Darren Clarke, National Highways’ severe weather resilience manager, said he had dispatched a fair number of gritters to deal with the roads on Monday.
“We started the autumn and winter season with around 280,000 tonnes of salt stored in our depots and yesterday we used 12,000 tonnes in our network given the current weather conditions. We can call on 530 gritters in our fleet and we have deployed the right number to treat roads according to conditions in different areas of our network.”
The transport secretary, Mark Harper, defended the highway authorities’ response to the cold snap after motorists were left stranded on the M25.
He told LBC radio on Tuesday: “My understanding, listening to what National Highways has said, is that there has been a very significant amount of gritting. But of course, that does not mean that you can face the consequences of the fact that it was very cold and heavy snow fell all over the country.
He added that the National Highways staff had worked “incredibly hard” to push the roads.
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