UK weather: Heavy snow could cut off villages in south east of England this week, Met Office warns

Heavy snow could cut off villages in the south east of England this week, the Met Office has warned.

A band of rain pushing eastwards across the country is likely to turn to snow on Tuesday evening, with up to 3cm likely going into Wednesday. 

The south east is set to bear the brunt of the Arctic blast and the Met Office has issued a Yellow weather warning for snow on Tuesday and Wednesday - with travel delays on roads and rail likely and a chance that "some rural communities could become cut off" as the weather deteriorates.

Nationally, some areas could get up to 10cm of snow on high ground as Arctic winds from the north move into the UK.

The Met Office said: "Accumulations of 1-3 cm are likely quite widely, with accumulations of 5cm in places. There is a small chance that some areas could see up to 10 cm, more especially over the higher ground."



The weather warning is in place from 9pm on Tuesday to 12pm on Wednesday, the Met Office said. 

Temperatures are set to drop to between 3 or 4C for most of Tuesday.

Met Office forecaster Ellie Creed said there was likely to be a "widespread" frost and possible ice forming overnight into Monday morning.

She said: "I think you could well find it's somewhere between -5 and -7C over the Scottish glens ... but actually for lots of places maybe negative degrees, about -2 to -3C in the north, whereas some cities in the south will be hovering around zero."

She added: "It's a case of normal wintry hazards that we would expect - snow, ice, frost are going to be quite prevalent over the next few days."

It follows a windy weekend that left parts of Wales without electricity on Sunday as overhead cables were felled.

Strong northerly winds with gusts of up to 70mph pounded the west and east coasts.

The Met Office said the winds would slowly ease overnight into Monday.

The Met Office warned of power cuts in light of the heavy snow on Tuesday and poor mobile phone coverage.

BBC forecaster Alina Jenkins warned of frequent snow showers, starting from northern Scotland and pushing southern and eastwards on Tuesday. 

www.telegraph.co.uk