Heavy snow brings school closures and travel disruption in Northern Ireland

Much of the region woke to a thick covering of snow on Thursday morning.

Snowy conditions at Castle Coole in Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh as the county was covered by an overnight snow fall (PA) (PA Wire)

Several schools were forced to close and travellers faced disruption after much of Northern Ireland was blanketed by overnight snow.

Counties Fermanagh, Tyrone, Londonderry and Antrim were worst hit by the wintry conditions.

People in Belfast also woke up to snowy scenes on Thursday morning.

Public transport services were disrupted in the early part of the morning.

Snowy conditions at Castle Coole in Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh (PA) (PA Wire)

Buses in the Co Tyrone town of Dungannon were suspended entirely for a period due to the poor conditions.

A yellow snow warning was due to remain in place until 8pm on Thursday. The Met Office also warned of the potential of lightning.

In a Twitter post on Thursday morning, Translink said: “Due to poor weather conditions please allow for delays/adjustments to journeys in your area this morning.”

Salting and ploughing works were undertaken across the roads network early on Thursday.

TrafficWatch NI warned motorists of “difficult driving conditions”.

“Additional salting being carried out throughout the province this morning – road users are advised to slow down and allow extra time for their journeys,” the roads information service tweeted.

A number of schools in different parts of Northern Ireland were unable to open on Thursday morning due to the snow.

The snowfall came after a period of extreme weather conditions on the island of Ireland following a series of storms over the last week.