Snowy scenes in Northumberland with Met Office weather warning of more to come

A few centimetres of snow fell in towns including Alnwick, Berwick and Morpeth, with more in upland parts of the county.

Embleton Vincent St Edwards C of E Primary School is closed due a broken boiler which has left it without heating.

The Met Office has a yellow weather warning in place for snow in Northumberland until 2pm on Friday.

However, Northumberland is not included in the amber warning for heavy snow which is likely to cause significant disruption on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning in other parts of the north of England and Midlands.

It says: “An area of low pressure will move across the UK on Thursday and Friday with snow developing across Wales and central England early on Thursday morning.

"This is expected to move slowly north during the day, becoming slow-moving across north Wales, northern England, Northern Ireland and southern Scotland during the afternoon and evening before slowly clearing southeast on Friday.

"Snow will likely turn to sleet or rain at times at lower elevations, especially in the south of the warning area, as well as near eastern coasts. At low levels including major cities such as Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle accumulations are expected to be limited with a small chance of 2-5 cm falling.

"However, significant snow accumulations are possible over hills of northern England (including populated areas of South and West Yorkshire), Northern Ireland and southern Scotland.

"Here, 10-15 cm is expected quite widely above 100 metres, with a chance that 25-40 cm could fall in some places . Additionally, there is potential for strong winds, which may lead to blizzard conditions and drifting of lying snow. Ice is likely to develop widely on Friday night as this system clears away.”

National Highways has issued a severe weather alert for snow in the north of England.

Duncan Smith, National Highways executive director of operations, said: "We are well prepared and our gritters have been out in full force since Friday and will continue to treat the roads. We are asking drivers to plan ahead, check the forecast and allow more time for their journeys.”

Northern Powergrid has admitted the weather front has the potential to have an impact and cause damage to the electricity network and warns there is a possibility that there could be disruption to power supplies in at least some parts of the region.

It says the relevant teams are on standby and ready to be diverted onto the storm response should this materialise. It also has a large fleet of generators ready to be deployed where they are the most effective way of restoring supplies.