Snow causes travel chaos as flights grounded

Runways at Heathrow have been closed for much of the day, and London’s Gatwick Airport was forced to shut its runway for several hours.

Snow also meant flights were grounded at airports across the country, including Birmingham, Luton and Stansted.

Air passengers have also faced disruption at Exeter, London City, Aberdeen and Cardiff airports, while Belfast City reopened after it was closed last night and Southampton Airport reopened this afternoon. Delays and cancellations were expected at Belfast

Officials advised all passengers to check their flight status before travel. British Airways cancelled all short-haul flights from Heathrow and said all long-haul flights due to depart from the airport before 9pm would be cancelled too.

Passengers were urged not to travel to the airports if their flights were cancelled, as roads around Heathrow and Gatwick have been extremely congested.

Severe weather warnings of heavy snow are in place across England: almost everywhere bar East Anglia. See the Met Office website for the latest details.

The RAC warned motorists not to take to the roads unless their journeys were absolutely necessary.

The AA had around 4,000 breakdowns across the UK by 10.30am, with calls peaking at 1,200 every hour – twice the normal rate. It expected to attend around 18,000 call-outs by the end of the day, compared to around 9,000 on an average Saturday.

Hundreds of motorists were left stranded on the M6 in Greater Manchester as the north west of England was hit with reported deluges of up to 25cm of snow.

Tonight and tomorrow southern Scotland and northern-east England get another go after their already impressive blizzards of recent weeks.

The Met Office predicts the coldest December since records began in 1910.

Up to 20cm – nearly 8 inches – of snow fell in south-east England and London. Train services also experienced delays and almost every motorway in England south of Manchester was affected in various degrees.

North West Ambulance Service said there were delays in getting to some emergency patients. In some areas coastguards services are helping the NHS.

The Met Office says temperatures could plunge to minus 20C in parts of Scotland.

Train services experienced delays, with operators in the south, including Southeastern, South West Trains and Southern Railway, running reduced services.

Elsewhere rail passengers were experiencing delays to services, including in Wales, while Eurostar was operating with a speed restriction due to the severe weather. Journeys to the continent took up to an hour longer than usual as a result.

National Express was operating majority of its coach network but warned of delays and diversions in the worst hit areas.