UK weather maps: Long range forecasts reveal exact date huge snowbomb to hit Britain

The UK has been under a barrage of severe weather conditions, with the Met Office covering much of the country with yellow weather warnings due to ice and snow

New weather maps show the moment an enormous wall of snow comes crashing through the UK.

Brits are set for a brief reprieve after a week of chaos wrought by freezing temperatures engulfing the British Isles. But it won't last long as in a matter of weeks a new, enormous wall of snow is set to careen across the UK.

On January 25, a several-hundred mile weather front will be looming to the west of Ireland, and looks likely to make landfall in the country, bringing with it as much as 5cm of snow per hour.

It comes after Brits faced the coldest temperatures in chilliest winter night so far.

Much of the UK has seen snow and major travel disruption this week while hundreds of schools have had to close due to the weather. Manchester Airport closed both its runways on Thursday morning “due to significant levels of snow” but they were later reopened. Transport for Wales closed some rail lines in the country due to track damage following a period of “heavy wind, rain and snow”.

Met Office weather warnings for ice are in place across the majority of Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as large parts of the east of England and some areas of western England, until 10am on Friday. There is also a warning for snow and ice in northern Scotland that runs until the same time tomorrow.

And the UK Health Security Agency has extended its cold weather health alert for all of England until Sunday. Amber alerts will now run until January 12, meaning a rise in deaths is likely, the agency said. Wednesday’s lowest overnight temperature was -12.4C in Inverness-shire, Scotland and that was with cloud cover, so forecasters believe that with a clear sky tonight it can drop a lot more in some areas.

BBC weather forecaster Chris Fawkes said: " Overnight we are looking at a really widespread frost, where most people live in towns and cities you probably won’t notice much change in the temperatures, -4C to -7C, but it is across snow covered valleys in Scotland we could see temperatures plummet down to somewhere between -18C and -20C. A sharp frost, icy conditions to start the day for Friday."

And Met Office meteorologist Liam Eslick said: “It’s going to be another cold couple of days, and recovering into the early part of next week. Anywhere across the UK is likely to see those temperatures dipping below freezing and likely to see quite severe frost and ice to form overnight tonight.”