Blizzards swept across central and southern England yesterday, bringing more road and rail chaos, forcing airlines to suspend flights and hundreds of schools to close.
The Met Office issued severe weather warnings across the entire country, predicting that up to 40 cm of snow could fall in the home counties and London by the end of the day yesterday.
After the north of England and Scotland were worst-hit by the freeze on Tuesday, the Met Office warned of "extreme weather" for much of southern England, which is also set to continue throughout this week.
Forecasters said Hampshire, Oxfordshire, West Berkshire, Surrey and Buckinghamshire could see "exceptionally heavy snowfall" as the blizzards moved south.
They said between 15cm and 30cm of snow is expected, but there could be in excess of 40cm.
"This is expected to cause widespread disruption to the transport network and could lead to problems with power supplies," it said.
Hundreds of schools have been forced to close with Lancashire, West Yorkshire, the West Midlands, Gloucestershire, Hertfordshire and Surrey worst hit.
The cold snap, which forecasters said is the worst in 30 years, brought travel chaos, with ice and snow making driving treacherous and heavy disruption to rail services.
Close to 1,000 motorists were trapped in their cars on the A3 over night in Hampshire, with many others forced to abandon their vehicles in the rest of the county as snow drifts made roads impassable. A spokeswoman for BAA said a total of 29 flights in and out of Heathrow had been cancelled yesterday.
Luton airport was closed from about 8.30 p.m. British time on Tuesday evening until 4.30 a.m. British time yesterday, with a total of 44 flights in and out of the airport cancelled.
Sleeping, yawning, queueing and making tearful phonecalls, thousands of stranded passengers were stuck in snow-bound London Gatwick Airport. They should have been in Accra, Mexico City and Fuerteventura, but instead they were trapped at London's second airport, which was not spared the overnight blanket of snow that fell on England. Easyjet flights were cancelled.
Eurostar cancelled four trains yesterday due to bad weather and expects more problems just three weeks after powdery snow turned its rail link between Britain and France into a pre-Christmas undersea travel trap.
Meanwhile, rail operators have announced reduced services and delays including East Coast, East Midlands, Chiltern Railways, First Great Western, National Express East Anglia, South West Trains, Southeastern and Southern trains.