Winter chill reaches -12C - and there's more to come

Temperatures plunged to -12C as the West Midlands shivered through the coldest night of the winter so far, with the same to come tonight.

The AA and the Met Office were today warning of treacherous road conditions due to Arctic blasts moving south from Scotland, where temperatures last night fell to -15C (5F).

The West Midlands today awoke to a spectacular snow-like hoar frost, with the mercury unlikely to go above freezing until at least Thursday.

Health bosses revealed soaring demand at NHS walk-in centres, while Walsall-based emergency experts HomeServe reported record numbers of call-outs to broken boilers and frozen water pipes. At least nine people have so far died in the big freeze.

The latest victim was an elderly man found dead in snow at a Lincolnshire caravan park.

Elsewhere hundreds of drivers were stranded overnight and around 100 children forced to sleep at their school after fresh snow brought more havoc to the UK.

Scotland bore the brunt of the latest blast of wintry weather. Around 150 people spent the night in a school in South Lanarkshire after pupils, parents and staff were unable to get home.

Thousands of drivers were stranded last night in their cars on major routes including the M8 linking Glasgow to Edinburgh, for up to 12 hours.

Birmingham Airport was open as normal today but flights from Dusseldorf, Dublin and Edinburgh were cancelled.