Training | 2010.02.22
Rain and snow hit UK travellers
Wintry weather set to continue throughout UK for rest of week
Snow and heavy rain brought Monday morning gloom and more travel disruption to many areas of the UK today with the wintry weather set to continue for the rest of the week.
Luton airport runway was closed after severe weather in Bedfordshire meant snow had to be cleared, leading to flight cancellations and delays.
A spokesman for the airport said it would remain closed until about 1pm. Arriving and departing flights would either be cancelled or delayed.
A series of accidents on major traffic routes caused significant problems, while train users faced delays due to overruns of weekend engineering work.
Snow fell in large parts of southern England, with Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Suffolk all affected.
A spokesman for the Met Office said: "It is a very gloomy and wintry scene out there today, with heavy rain in the south of the country and in London."
He said there would still be frost in northern parts of the country with temperatures around freezing. At mid-morning yesterday the temperature in Aberdeen was -7C, after falling to -18C overnight.
"It\'s going to be a cold night, with lows of -15C in the Highlands, and the likelihood of widespread ice tomorrow morning."
The rest of the week would be mixed, he said.
"It\'s going to be a soggy, cold week with sleet and snow from the Midlands and further north ... We\'ll see a lot of rain in the south, mainly from south-west Wales to Essex."
He warned that the heavy rainfall on already sodden ground heightened the risk of flooding.
On the roads, a section of the A1 in Northumberland was closed because of an accident, while a vehicle fire shut part of the M54 in Shropshire. An accident caused congestion on a stretch of the M25 in Surrey, while another caused delays on the A23 in West Sussex.
Buses had to replace trains on East Midlands Trains services between Boston and Grantham in Lincolnshire because of over-running weekend engineering work.
The Oxford area was also affected by railway engineering and there were delays on East Coast services through Hitchin in Hertfordshire and on First TransPennine Express services, where buses replaced trains between Scunthorpe and Cleethorpes.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/feb/22/rain-snow-road-rail-air
