UK weather live: Met Office issues three day snow warning for most of England

Some parts of the North West saw almost a month’s worth of rain within 48 hours, according to the Met Office.

And that was before the North West and Wales were lashed by more heavy rain on Wednesday.

Honister Pass in Cumbria saw nearly 6in (150mm) of rain, while Rochdale in Greater Manchester had 3in (77mm).

The Met Office has forecast a sunny morning for many across the UK.

Writing on X, the weather service said: “Thursday morning will start frosty, though clear or sunny for many

“Some ice and wintry showers, especially in the north.”

Several hundred British Airways passengers expecting to depart on their flights back to London Gatwick on New Year’s Day have enjoyed extended holidays at the airline’s expense. They can also look forward to hundreds of pounds in compensation, as the hold-ups were due to technical faults on BA’s Boeing 777 aircraft.

The first problem arose on New Year’s Eve, when BA2065 from Gatwick to Mauritius “went technical”. Departure for the Indian Ocean island was delayed by 24 hours.

Holidaymakers in Mauritius were due to fly back on the aircraft at 9.10pm on New Year’s Day. But the plane was still on the ground at Gatwick.

British Airways says the flight will now leave Mauritius at 12.15pm on 2 January, 15 hours behind schedule. Passengers will get an extra night on the island.

Conversely, though, passengers on the outbound flight spent 24 hours at hotels in the Gatwick area, shortening their holidays by a day.

The New Year’s Day British Airways flight from Gatwick to Orlando in Florida was cancelled because of another technical fault. Passengers must be found space on alternative flights, but many are likely to have to change planes

All travellers on either leg of the grounded flights are entitled to £520 under air passengers’ rights rules. British Airways must pay for additional hotel nights and meals.

People who are on package holidays and who lose a day of the trip because of being stuck at Gatwick should also be able to claim a pro-rata refund of the cost of their trip.

In Bristol, the Severe Weather Emergency Protocol has been activated by Bristol City Council and homeless charity St Mungo’s.

Running until 8 January, it will see increased outreach shifts and more accommodation made available, with the aim of ensuring nobody has to sleep on the streets during such extreme weather conditions.

A geography professor said they have had 70 to 80mm of rain in the Greater Manchester region after measuring it on a rain gauge at his home.

Tom Coulthard, who works at the University of Hull from Didsbury, south Manchester, said: “It started raining heavily at about 5 or 6pm on Tuesday evening, and then it just rained hard all night.

“All the local rivers and water courses have sort of filled up and flooded around the area.

“All around this part of south Manchester, Cheadle, bits of Cheshire, there’s been local flooding. Roads closed. The motorway was closed, the M60, the M56 to Manchester Airport, that was all closed off.

“The last record level was set in Didsbury in February 2022, these record levels in the rivers around here are tumbling every year or every couple of years.

“That’s really probably a sign of just how our weather is changing, how climate is shifting this.

“This is in line with all sorts of the predictions that people in my profession have been talking about for 20 years or more, the impacts of climate change will be sort of warmer, wetter winters.”

Floods minister Emma Hardy said she met officials from the Environment Agency on Wednesday to “ensure that impacted communities are receiving the necessary support” and added she wants to “express my heartfelt thanks for the vital work that the Environment Agency and emergency services are doing to keep people safe”.

She added: “The government is working at pace to accelerate the building of flood defences through our new Floods Resilience Taskforce, so we can continue to protect people and their homes.”

Gatwick, the busiest single-runway airport in the world, has had two diversions of arriving aircraft on New Year’s Day.

An easyJet flight from Edinburgh to the Sussex airport was unable to land early in the morning and diverted to Stansted. The Airbus waited on the ground at the Essex airport before flying back to Gatwick and landing successfully.

Passengers on easyJet’s morning flight from Copenhagen were not so lucky. The aircraft was initially on course for an on-time arrival, but when 50 miles east of Gatwick it entered a holding pattern – and, a few minutes later, a second hold.

The first attempt at landing was aborted when the aircraft was at a height of 575 feet. The aircraft was immediately vectored for a second attempt, but the pilots made a second “go-around” at 800 feet, according to data from Flightradar24.

Safety was never compromised, and the aircraft flew on to Stansted, where it landed 70 minutes later than its scheduled arrival at Gatwick.

Motorways and roads across the country are partly closed due to flooding.

National Highways reports there are currently severe incidents as a result of closures due to flooding at:

• The A628 eastbound between the A57 and the junction with the A616
• Two lanes of the The M56 westbound entry slip at junction J6
• The M62 westbound entry slip at junction J24
• The A628 westbound between the A616 and the junction with the A57
• The M53 southbound
• The M56 westbound between junctions J6 and J8
• The M60 anticlockwise