Snow and heavy rain forecast for UK

Up to 10cms of snow may fall in parts of central England and east Wales tomorrow, threatening more travel disruption. Met Office forecasters also say there is a "moderate risk" of severe weather in northern and western parts of Britain on Thursday, predicting rainfalls of up to 5cm over higher ground and strong to gale-force southerly winds. The warning follows a month of some of the worst winter conditions for decades, with temperatures falling as low as -22C and snow reaching 40cms deep in southern England. Helen Chivers, of the Met Office, said the predicted snow tomorrow was not comparable to that of recent weeks, describing it as "fairly normal winter weather". She said it would be "temporary" and would not affect many low-level areas, although they might experience heavy rain. "It's a mixture of rain, sleet and snow during the day tomorrow," she said. "It will be gone by the early part of tomorrow night. The wind will come through from the south-west and there will be a lot of rain." The return of icy conditions will put further pressure on stocks of salt available for gritting. A spokesman for the Local Government Association said: "The milder weather over the last few days will have helped authorities in terms of their supplies. While we don't have the supplies we had at the beginning of the cold weather, we have no reason to think there will be any problems." An AA spokesman said the organisation would have extra patrols on the roads. Despite the recent thaw, the recovery service was still experiencing heavy demand, probably as a result of people trying to use second cars that had not been driven during the cold snap. "The last couple of days we are still seeing breakdown levels comparable with what we've seen last week," the spokesman said. "They've been running at double the usual workload."