More snow - and travel chaos - expected for parts of Britain

PLUNGING temperatures threatened further chaos today as parts of Britain were warned that more snow is on the way.

Forecasters said the chill will tighten its grip again tonight.

Homes in the Midlands and south Wales were bracing themselves for further travel disruption and school closures as forecasters warned of up to eight inches (20cm) of snow tonight.

But perilous conditions which brought transport networks to a standstill and stopped millions of people getting to work were easing in the South East.

Steve Ellison, a forecaster with MeteoGroup, the weather division of the Press Association, said: "The most extreme of the weather is moving north.

"The highest points in south Wales and the Midlands will get up to 20cm of snow over the night and into the morning.

"But further south the thaw has begun – temperatures are unlikely to drop below freezing in London in the coming days."

The Met Office said the fresh band of snow would stretch across Gloucestershire and the Midlands.

The AA said the forecasts for the roads were "on a knife-edge" tonight.

While rail and air services returned to normal and schools across the south continued to reopen today, motorists and pedestrians faced increasingly treacherous icy roads.

A spokesman for the AA said: "A critical area will be patches of the M4, where there will either be a lot of rain or snow.

"While business is normal today, the general outlook is on a knife-edge tonight – we are on standby."

In the capital, one of the areas worst hit on Monday, a Transport for London (TfL) spokeswoman said it was "business as usual" today.

"We are operating quite a good service now," she said.

A spokeswoman for airports operator BAA said it was running a "full or near-full schedule" at its airports.

An estimated one in five workers took Monday off because of weather-related transport or childcare problems.

Estimates said the weather disruption, caused by some of the heaviest snowfall to hit the UK in almost two decades, could cost the country as much as 3.5 billion.

Stephen Alambritis, from the Federation of Small Businesses, said the economy could lose as much as 3.5 billion this week as a result of the disruption, and added: "One of the world's biggest economies should not be grinding to a halt."