Further warning of ice and sleet - cold snap to continue until end of week, forecaster warns

Wintry conditions will continue until the weekend, before milder and wetter weather sweeps in to create a temporary reprieve.

A number of weather warnings for snow or ice are in place across the UK as the cold weather continues this week.

Yesterday the Met Office issued a warning, valid from 3pm until 11am today (Thursday) of wintry showers, leading to ice and slippery surfaces.

"Occasional wintry showers will lead to ice forming on untreated surfaces," it warned. "The showers mainly of rain or sleet around the north coast throughout, and on the east coast on Thursday morning, but otherwise falling as snow with accumulations of 1 to 3 cm in a few places."

The warning applies to all six counties across Northern Ireland with the forecaster warning of injuries from slips and falls on icy surfaces on some untreated roads, pavements and cycle paths.

Northern Ireland recorded its coldest night of the year this week, as the cold snap continues into a second week.

Katesbridge, in County Down, fell to -9C through the early hours of Monday morning.

That is the lowest temperature in almost two years when, coincidentally, temperatures fell to -10C also in Katesbridge on 26 January 2021.

Paul Gundersen, Met Office Chief Forecaster, said: “Over the last week, the UK has been held in a northerly airflow bringing cold, sometimes Arctic air, to the UK. We will still have this northerly influence to our weather patterns until the weekend, but then the cold conditions will lose exclusive dominance over the UK’s weather patterns and we will move into a regime where relatively mild and relatively cold conditions will vie for supremacy.

“We can expect changeable conditions with colder and milder air not too far away from our shores, but it does seem that the Atlantic ‘has woken up’ compared with recent days and will be a stronger influence, countering any further bouts of extreme cold conditions, although spells of further wintry weather remain possible through the rest of December.”