UK weather: 6 inches of snow to blanket Britain as families risk £200 fine with snowball fight amid risk to life warning
SIX inches of snow are set to blanket Britain - and families risked £200 fines as held an impromptu snowball fight today.
A "potential risk to life" warning has been issued as heavy snow falls, forcing schools to close and causing traffic chaos.
An amber weather alert was put out by the Met Office at 3am this morning.
The warning covers Bradford, Leeds, Wakefield, Sheffield, Huddersfield, Harrogate and the surrounding areas.
Dozens of people in Leeds were seen taking part in a snowball fight this morning.
Last week in the same city, two men involved in organising a massive snowball fight were given £10,000 fines for a "blatant breach" of coronavirus lockdown rules.
Dozens of people were seen throwing snowballs at each other as crowds of people flocked to Hyde Park in on January 14.
Hundreds of schools have been forced to shut after an amber snow warning with "potential risk to life" was issued as heavy snow fell in most of Yorkshire today.
Two hundred schools in Bradford, West Yorks., have been shut to all pupils, with more than 100 closed in neighbouring Leeds and Kirklees and 50 in Wakefield.
Fifty schools in North Yorkshire and 40 in South Yorkshire have also been forced to close due to the heavy snowfall.
Bradford Council also confirmed this morning that community testing teams would not be out in the district handing out home testing kits as a result of extreme weather conditions.
And overnight, vehicles became stuck on the eastbound M62 near Rochdale, Lancashire, between junction 21 for Milnrow and junction 22 for Denshaw leading to a temporary closure of the carriageway.
Pictures show a lorry jack-knifed on the same motorway westbound between junction 23 and junction 22 in the early hours.
Compared to a yellow weather warning, amber means there is an increased likelihood of bad weather affecting the public, with a potential risk to life.
The alert comes after the UK was battered with torrential rain over the weekend leaving cars submerged on flooded roads across the country.
Meanwhile, yellow weather warnings are also in place for rain, snow and ice for a large part of northern England.
The huge area covers Nottingham in the midlands all the way up to Dundee in Scotland.
This warning began at 10pm on Monday and will last until the end of today.
Further yellow warnings are in place for parts of Scotland from this morning until Saturday.
Parts of Scotland could see up to 11 inches of the white stuff this week.
Met Office forecaster Simon Partridge said the wintry weather will continue into this week.
He predicted a "much heavier" band of rain to arrive overnight on Monday into Tuesday which will "quickly turn to snow as it bumps up against cold air".
This has triggered further yellow weather warnings for snow and ice for today and Wednesday.
It comes after Saturday night was recorded as being the coldest night of the year so far, with January being the coldest month in a year.
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Temperature maps from the weather agency showed the mercury plunging to -15C in rural areas of northern Scotland, and as low as -6C in the north of England on Saturday night.
The lowest temperature recorded before this was -13C in Dawyck Royal Botanic Gardens in the Scottish Borders, the Met Office said.