An amber warning for snow and ice has now been issued for North Wales over the weekend. The Met Office warning comes into effect at 6pm on Saturday and lasts until 12pm on Sunday, covering Wrexham, Flintshire, Denbighshire, Conwy and Gwynedd.
The Met Office has warned “snow and freezing rain will likely lead to disruption to transport and some other services”, with potential power cuts, road closures, delays and cancellations to bus, rail and air travel.
There is also a chance rural communities could be cut off and “untreated pavements and cycle paths [are] likely to be impassable”. The forecast added: “Snow will become persistent and locally heavy as it pushes south to north across the warning area.
“As well as snow, a period of freezing rain is also likely bringing some hazardous travel conditions, before milder air follows across all areas by Sunday morning. Whilst there is some uncertainty in details, 3-7cm of snow is likely for much of the warning area, with locally 15-30cm for the higher ground of Wales and the southern Pennines.
“Freezing rain could lead to ice accretion in places, especially parts of Wales, before the milder air leads to a rapid thaw of snow and ice in the south of the warning area through Sunday.” In addition to the amber warning, a yellow alert for snow and ice is also in place for the whole of Wales, which comes into force at 12pm tomorrow (Saturday), lasting until midnight on Sunday.
A separate weather warning for ice is also in place from 4pm today (Friday) until 10am tomorrow (Saturday). You can read more about that warning here.
The changing weather picture comes amid the Met Office’s reiteration that snow is very difficult to predict. It said: “As it’s so cold high up in the atmosphere most precipitation either starts off as snow or supercooled raindrops. As it falls to earth it moves through warmer air most of the time and melts.
“Depending on the temperature of the air near the ground we either see rain or sleet or hail. However the freezing level (usually the boundary at which precipitation will fall as snow rather than rain) doesn’t just stay the same every day or even within a day. Sometimes it can change hour by hour, across the country, or even a few miles down the road.”
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