Drivers were urged to take extra care on icy roads today after a blast of Arctic weather left large swathes of eastern Britain blanketed in snow.

The Met office has issued severe weather warnings for much of the south east of England with the freezing temperatures and heavy snowfall prompting fears of traffic chaos.

The Highways Agency together with councils across the country deployed an army of gritting vehicles yesterday to ensure roads remained open today.

Lows of -6 Celsius were recorded in parts of Oxfordshire overnight, with as much as six centimetres of snow falling in rural areas of Lincolnshire.

But despite the difficult conditions, the Highways Agency reported that all routes were open.

“Despite the conditions everything seems to be working well. All our winter maintenance teams were out gritting last night and despite the temporary closure of a part of the M62 earlier today all routes are open," said a spokesman.

“But motorists have to play their part and drive to the conditions.”

A Met spokesman said that conditions should ease across affected areas as the day progressed.

He said: “There are some hazardous conditions on the roads, in places temperatures are very close to freezing giving the possibility of icy roads.”

The AA advised drivers to limit their speed to match the conditions and be aware of the greater stopping distances required in ice and snow.

A spokesman said: “The problem is that the bad weather is drifting all over the place, it’s hard to tell where you are going to run into it and where you are going to escape it.

“We would advise motorists to be prepared for the unexpected, the worst of the weather is running from the east of England down to London, if you are travelling in this area you should be prepared that your journey could take longer than normal.”

A few flakes of snow fell in the capital this morning but it was soon replaced with freezing rain.

The UK is still in for a spell of miserable weather as the snow is replaced by heavy rain, sleet and in some places thunder.

A spokesman for MeteoGroup UK explained: “The cold front has moved south as expected resulting in a very cold night across England and Wales.

“At the moment we are still seeing some snow falling in parts of the south east.

“But what we are also seeing is a couple of bands of heavy rain spreading down through the Midlands.

“In some places the rain will fall on roads that are still frozen and we could see extremely slippy conditions on people’s driveways and pavements, but this will only be temporary.”

The snow has stopped falling in the east of Scotland but the west of the country is set to be deluged with rain squalls, hail, sleet and thunder.

The south west and Wales have avoided the worst of the freezing temperatures but will experience increasingly windy conditions as the day progresses.

The charity Age Concern has warned older people to take extra care to stay warm in the freezing weather.

The cold front has prompted bookmakers William Hill to slash the odds of a white Christmas in London from 8/1 to 6/1.

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