ST HELENS could see sleet and snow showers from this afternoon, Wednesday.

The Met Office is issuing a yellow weather warning for wintery weather across the north west of England.

The warning will come into effect from 3am on Thursday morning, and it will remain in force through to 6pm on Friday evening.

Temperatures are expected to vary between 1 and 3C.

Sleet and snow

But BBC forecasts say that sleet and snow could arrive earlier than then.

Sleet is predicted between 3pm on Wednesday and could turn to snow by 9pm.

On Thursday there could be light snow between 6am and 9am before sleet falls through the morning, followed by rain in the afternoon.

More sleet could follow between 6pm and 9pm.

Forecasters suggest further showers will fall between 6am and noon on Friday.

Regional warning

Regionally, forecasters say snow has the potential to cause "significant disruption" with a chance that long delays and cancellations could occur on bus, rail and air travel routes.

A Met Office spokesman said: “Snow could develop quite widely across the warning area on Thursday and Friday, as a potentially quite deep area of low pressure moves across the UK.

“Parts of Northern Ireland, north Wales and northern England are currently expected to see the worst of the conditions on Thursday.

“Parts of Scotland and northern England will then see the heaviest snow on Friday.

“Event totals could bring 5cm to 10cm of snow to many locations, even at low elevations, with potentially 15cm to 20cm accumulating across the northern portion of the warning area.

“Higher elevations of the north Pennines, southern uplands, higher parts of the central belt and the southern highlands may see as much as 30cm to 40cm of snow in places.

“In addition, there is potential for strong winds, which may lead to blizzard conditions and drifting of lying snow.”

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