Amy Sedghi (now) and Adam Fulton (earlier)
2026-01-09 11:02:00
Fresh snow and ice warnings issued for Scotland and northern England for much of Sunday
Fresh weather warnings for snow and ice have been issued by the Met Office for much of Scotland and the north of England on Sunday.
A yellow warning covering large parts of Scotland, the East and West Midlands, north-east and north-west England and Yorkshire will come into force at 2am on Sunday, expected to run until 3pm.
Key events
At least 69 flights scheduled to operate to or from Heathrow airport on Friday have been cancelled. This is likely to have disrupted more than 9,000 passengers, reports the PA news agency.
Most of the cancellations are short-haul flights by British Airways, which is the largest airline at Heathrow.
Yellow weather warnings for snow and ice extended into Saturday for parts of the UK
Yellow weather warnings for snow and ice have been extended into Saturday for large parts of Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the Met Office said.
A yellow warning for snow and ice comes into force from midday Friday until 3pm on Saturday, with further snowfall possible across parts of northern England and much of Scotland, while a widespread risk of ice is expected to cause disruption.
A separate yellow warning for ice will cover large parts of England and Wales from midday Friday until midday Saturday as partially thawed snow refreezes, accompanied by wintry showers and freezing fog.
In Northern Ireland, a yellow warning for snow and ice will come into force from 5pm on Friday and run until 11am on Saturday, with the Met Office warning of icy patches and some hill snow.
Storm Goretti “continues to cause problems” as a mixture of rain, sleet and snow batters some areas of the UK, the Met Office said.
Meteorologist Alex Deakin said the storm will continue to clear throughout Friday, but many still face a “wet, cold, miserable day”.
He said:
Storm Goretti continues to cause problems through Friday morning, particularly across parts of eastern England, where we are seeing a mixture of rain, sleet, and still some snow falling.
The heavy snow over the West Midlands and Wales has now eased but of course, is still lying on the floor and still causing some disruption.
Gradually, through the day, the storm will continue to clear away, but it’s going to still be a wet, cold miserable day across much of eastern England, and still icy across parts of northern Britain as well.
Have you been affected by Storm Goretti? If so, the Guardian’s community team would like to hear from you.
Share your experience and upload any photos you have taken of the impact in the form linked here:
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Here are some of the latest pictures coming in via the newswires:
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has said that employers “must show understanding and not punish workers who cannot safely travel to work” by withholding pay or making them use their holiday.
TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said:
This will be a stressful time for many people – especially with forecasters sounding the alarm. Employers must show basic common sense and understanding.
No one should be pressured into making dangerous journeys. And workers shouldn’t be punished with lost pay or forced to take holiday because the weather makes travel impossible.
Good bosses will already have bad weather policies in place so staff know where they stand. They will also recognise that when schools are closed some parents will not be able to work as they have to care for their children.
The TUC suggests that all employers have clear weather policies to set out what staff should do when snow and ice, or a lack of public transport, prevents them from getting to work. The union body says that these policies should also cover what parents should do if schools close and they have no alternative childcare.
Official health and safety law says the temperature in workplaces should normally be at least 16C (or 13C if much of the work indoors involves severe physical effort) and bosses should also ensure entrances to workplaces are gritted and not slippery.
More than 45,000 properties were without power in south-west England just before 9am on Friday, according to the National Grid’s website, while about 17,000 had no power in the West Midlands, more than 700 had no power in the East Midlands and more than 600 were without power in Wales.
As reported earlier around 8am, 147,983 properties had been restored across south-west England, the Midlands, and south Wales.
More travel updates are rolling in, per the PA news agency:
A number of East Midlands Railway (EMR) services will be affected by snow on Friday.
EMR said the Hope Valley, the line between Sheffield and Manchester, will be closed all day. A number of other lines, including between Nottingham and Lincoln and between Leicester and Nottingham, will be closed until after 10am on Friday.
The train operator said
Please check your journey before travelling today. Heavy snowfall has impacted our regional routes with some services starting later than usual.
Network Rail has said “very intense heavy snow” hit the West Midlands, Shropshire and Staffordshire areas on Thursday night, while the West Country and Wales saw high winds.
Workers with chainsaws and snowploughs are being used to help railway staff clear routes in those regions.
Passengers are advised not to travel by train in Birmingham and surrounding areas until at least midday. Some lines in the region may remain closed until Saturday.
There is severe disruption in Wales and no trains in Cornwall until midday on Friday.
Meanwhile, Derbyshire county council said some of the highest roads in the Peak District have been closed since last night.
The roads that remain closed on Friday morning are parts of the A57 Snake Pass, the A54/A537 Cat and Fiddle, the A6024 Holme Moss, the A53 Axe Edge and the A5004, Long Hill.
The council said:
Our fleet of gritters, fitted with snowploughs, have been out on the main roads all through the night. They will continue to do this throughout the day.
We won’t have been able to get to any smaller roads so far. In the north of the county, where we closed five of our highest roads last night, we’ll go and take a look at those later this morning.
Senay Boztas
It’s not just the UK that has been struggling with cold conditions, weather warnings and travel disruption, as Senay Boztas reports from the Netherlands:
A week-long winter cold snap that would once have been normal in the Netherlands has caused more than 2,000 flight cancellations, chaos on roads and railways, buildings to partially collapse, and a stream of angry cyclists asking why roads seem better gritted than cycle lanes.
Since Saturday, up to 15cm of snow has fallen across the country, with temperatures of -10C (14F) including wind chill, sparking angry commentary over how some nations manage months of snow but the Netherlands, no longer used to it, appears paralysed.
According to the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), snow is becoming less frequent as the climate crisis bites. In 1961, there was snow cover on an average of 23 days a year at the institute’s weather station at De Bilt, near Utrecht; now, it is just three days a year.
Wiebe Wieling is a former chair of the Elfstedentocht (11 cities tour) Association, which tries to organise an outdoor ice skating race on natural ice across 11 Friesian cities if the ice is thick enough, something that has not happened since 1997. He said:
We just don’t have the winters that we had in the 20th century. It’s not only my frustration. It’s a Dutch frustration. It’s a climate frustration.
So when snow does come, like it did this week, some worry that Dutch people have forgotten how to cope with it.
“Yesterday, I was walking along an important cycle route to various schools in Rotterdam,” an environmental consultant, Vincent Luyendijk, said on social media, sharing photos of children forced into the middle of traffic. “I was blue in the face with frustration.”
Power has been restored to 147,983 properties across the south-west, Midlands, and south Wales after Storm Goretti disrupted access to some sites on Thursday evening, National Grid said.
It said teams will “continue to work tirelessly” throughout the day on Friday to restore power to the remaining properties without power.
Fresh snow and ice warnings issued for Scotland and northern England for much of Sunday
Fresh weather warnings for snow and ice have been issued by the Met Office for much of Scotland and the north of England on Sunday.
A yellow warning covering large parts of Scotland, the East and West Midlands, north-east and north-west England and Yorkshire will come into force at 2am on Sunday, expected to run until 3pm.