Ice and snow weather warnings as 2025 set to get off to a freezing ...

Ice and snow warnings have been issued for East Yorkshire with temperatures set to plummet over the coming days as 2025 gets off to a freezing start.

After the transition between 2024 and 2025 was greeted with strong winds and heavy rain, a change in wind direction will see the mercury fall through New Year's Day leading to a chilly night and rest of the week.

The first Met Office weather warning will be in effect from 4pm today until 10am on Thursday and says icy surfaces could lead to "some difficult travel conditions". After hours of rainfall over the past day, ice is "likely to form quite quickly on untreated surfaces" bringing a risk of dangerous driving conditions and injuries from slips and falls.

In East Yorkshire, temperatures are expected to fall to around 2 or 3C by midnight and down to 0C or -1C by dawn on Thursday in many parts of the region.

After this, daytime highs throughout the rest of the week and the weekend are likely to peak no higher than around 4C around our region, and may struggle to push past 2C on Thursday. Meanwhile, overnight lows will drop below freezing each night quite widely with frosts and icy stretches expected.

Earlier this week, the UK Health Security Agency issued a yellow-level cold alert warning of possible "significant impacts" across health and social care services due to the falling temperatures.

Paul Gundersen, a chief forecaster for the Met Office, said: “The coastal gales and rain in the south of the UK will ease by the late afternoon of New Year’s Day, while at the other end of the country wintry showers are starting to feed into northern Scotland.

“Northern parts of the UK are already experiencing colder conditions but by Thursday morning the much colder air will reach remaining parts of the south and southeast.

“Overnight we have a series of National Severe Weather Warnings in place with a combined yellow warning for both snow and ice for northern Scotland, while a yellow ice warning is in place as far south as the Midlands.

"Standing water remaining from the heavy rainfall of the last few days will freeze, creating a risk for motorists, cyclists and pedestrians navigating untreated surfaces. Wintry showers remain a hazard especially for north-facing coasts and hills.”

Snow may be on the horizon

Looking ahead towards the weekend, a 45-hour yellow-level Met Office weather warning for snow has been issued with the alert area including areas west of Hull. In the warning area, heavy snow "may cause some disruption over the weekend" between noon on Saturday and 9am on Monday.

However, being a few days in advance, the forecaster says there are "uncertainties" and it is likely the warning area and start/end times may change as confidence increases.

Dan Holley is a deputy chief forecaster for the Met Office. He said: “An Atlantic frontal system is likely to move across parts of central and southern UK through the weekend. With milder, moisture-laden air engaging with the cold conditions already in place this may bring a spell of snow in some areas, before possibly turning back to rain in the south.

“At this stage there is a fair amount of uncertainty over exactly which areas will see disruptive snow, with parts of Wales, northern England and the Midlands most likely to see some impacts. Here we could see 5cm or more in quite a few areas, and perhaps as much as 20-30cm over high ground, including Wales and the Pennines. Coupled with strengthening winds this could lead to drifting, making travelling conditions difficult over higher-level routes in particular.

“We’ve currently issued a Yellow warning for snow covering a large part of England, Wales and southern Scotland to cater for possible disruption over the weekend, but it’s quite likely this will be refined over the coming days as confidence in the forecast increases. So it’s worth keeping up to date with the latest warnings.”