Weather: Britain has coldest night of the year as temperatures fall to -13C

BRITAIN had its coldest night of the year as vast swathes of the country fell below freezing – with -13C (8.6F) recorded in Shropshire.

Clear skies overnight saw temperatures plummet below the -12.4C (9.6F) low recorded on Saturday night – with the Met Office recording a new low in Shawbury, north east of Shrewsbury.

Yellow weather warnings for snow and ice are in place until 11am on Tuesday, covering large parts of the country, including London and the South East, much of the Midlands, Northern Ireland and Wales, as well as the eastern coast of England and parts of Scotland.

In parts of Gloucestershire, 36 homes were without power for a second night after ice and snow caused disruption across the country over the weekend.

Western Power Distribution said the outage was caused by the weather and engineers were expecting to have the power restored by 7.30am on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, dozens of schools in the South West, West Midlands and Wales will keep their gates closed for a second day following the bitterly cold conditions.

The country will also be waking up to freezing fog patches with rain and hill snow expected later in the day.

Met Office meteorologist Craig Snell told the Press Association: “It’s still possible that it could go lower but in Shawbury we saw -13C (8.6F) which is the coldest night of the year so far.

After the coldest night of the year so far, here are the lowest temperatures for each of the four nations pic.twitter.com/oOdqkPqiBn

— Met Office (@metoffice) December 12, 2017