UK weather – live: Arctic blast to bring snow as Met Office issues three days of warnings

As the UK is hit by further yellow weather warnings expecting heavy rain and flooding, The Independent explains how to check for flood alerts and weather warnings in your area.

The UK has endured a mild but rainy start to 2023 after an astonishingly cold December in which most parts of the country experienced snow, ice and prolonged exposure to sub-zero temperatures.

By contrast, the new year has been a demoralisingly drizzly affair so far, defined by near-daily downpours that have left paths muddy, fields sodden and rivers and streams in some danger of bursting their banks.

A Met Office spokesperson told The Independent that while snow would be confined to the highlands of Scotland in the coming days, “a cold spell of air could bring possible snow from the middle of February onwards”.

It comes as the country recovers from an Arctic blast which brought freezing temperatures.

The north of England is to be most severely impacted with heavy rain expected to follow across the region including Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle.

Pictured is a map forecasting Monday 12 February where a large band of snowfall could sweep over eastern parts of the country.

The Met Office has warned a huge Saharan dust cloud could be heading towards the United Kingdom.

Last year a similar cloud brought spectacular sunsets but motorists saw their vehicles covered in a fine dust that had travelled nearly 5,000km from the Sahara Desert. It is expected the new plume will be washed down from the atmosphere by rain falling as red dirt on Sunday afternoon.

One X user has documented the phenonenom.

There will be a “three-way split” in weather conditions across the UK on Monday, with a yellow rain warning issued for north-west England.

Craig Snell, meteorologist at the Met Office, said: “We’ve really got a weather front kind of slicing the country and that’s where the rain band is – to the south of it we’ve got the milder air, to the north of it the colder.

“So it’s going to be a cold front which is trying to push that that milder air away. It probably won’t win the day in the south, it will hang on to the milder air for a little bit longer.”

Regions caught in the rain, including southern Scotland, northern England and much of Wales, will see heavy and persistent showers in places and feel “pretty miserable” until rush hour on Tuesday morning, Mr Snell said.

It comes after the Scottish village of Kinlochewe provisionally set the UK record for temperature in January after hitting 19.6C on Sunday.

This beats the previous January UK record of 18.3C set at Inchmarlo and Aboyne in 2003 and Aber in 1958 and 1971, the forecaster said.

The record for the highest maximum temperature on a January day has just been broken after a provisional record was measured in northern Scotland.

The Met Office said they had recorded a 19.6C temperature on Sunday in Kinlochewe, a village in the northwest Highlands about an hour’s drive from Inverness.

Read the full story here…

Britain is set to be lashed by 70mph winds and heavy rain again, with the Met Office issuing four days of weather warnings.

The latest spate of bad weather began on Sunday morning, with three yellow warnings in place for parts of Scotland and Northern Ireland.

In place until 8pm, strong and gusty winds are likely to cause some travel disruption, with some journeys taking longer than usual and potential delays to road, rail, air and ferry services.

Read the full report by Matt Mathers here…

The heaviest downpours will have subsided by tonight making way for drizzle over Wales, northern England and southern Scotland, says the Met Office.

Northern Ireland and northern Scotland will feel chilly as meteorologists predict frosty conditions into the night.