Thaw to bring end to snow chaos

A THAW today should clear much of the heavy snow which brought chaos to parts of Britain yesterday, disrupting rail services and making driving conditions dangerous.

Forecasters say that temperatures in the south will rise to about 6C today and southern and central areas of England and Wales will be overcast but dry. Further north there will be more snow but falls will be light.

Yesterday a belt of snow swept northwards with falls up to six inches deep in places and the wind whipping it into drifts several feet deep in some areas. Speed restrictions were in force on many motorways and a spate of accidents occurred on roads with those in Devon, Cornwall, the Midlands and Wales being particularly badly affected.

There were six accidents in 90 minutes on the M1 in Northamptonshire and several crashes on the M42 in the West Midlands. On the M6 near Birmingham one lane in each direction was blocked after a lorry jack-knifed and three lorries overturned on the M11 in Essex.

Hampshire police said some roads on the Isle of Wight, where there were drifts up to 5 feet deep, were impassable, and there were numerous minor accidents across the county.

Rail services were disrupted with points freezing, snowdrifts blocking lines and trains cancelled. A 20- minute journey from Croydon to central London took up to an hour and a half. Services from Waterloo to the West Country were badly hit.

A spokesman for Network SouthEast said: 'The main cause of the difficulties was problems with points. On the whole our points heaters did work effectively but some did not.' Services should be back to normal today.

Southampton and Birmingham airports were closed for a time but at Heathrow a spokesman said services were 'more or less normal'.

In a variation on the extreme weather conditions yesterday, parts of East Anglia suffered an earthquake. The tremor, which measured 3.5 on the Richter scale, was centred near Swaffham, Norfolk and was felt 40 miles away.

The Meteorological Office at Bracknell, Berkshire, is updating its computer with a model six times more powerful. The Cray C916 will be used for climate prediction research and forecasting.

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