Thousands of Brits hit by power cuts after snow chaos sweeps across country with amber alerts for two days
THOUSANDS of homes are without power as snow sweeps across the nation.
Plunging temperatures and blizzard conditions have sparked power cuts across the South East and east of England, outage maps show.
The UK Power Networks site suggests around 37,500 customers have been affected – although the actual nationwide number is thought to be around the 40,000 mark as there are many different power grids.
West Sussex is the worst affected area, according to the UK Power Networks, with 37,781 customers without power.
Power issues are also affecting Greater London with 478 customers adversely affected.
There are problems also in East Sussex, Kent, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Buckinghamshire, Surrey and Hertfordshire.
A live map from the National Grid indicates residents in Exeter, Gloucester, Birmingham and Peterborough may also be impacted.
Parts of Cumbria are down, according to Electricity North West, and a small area in Bournemouth has “unplanned” outages, Scottish & Southern Electricity Networks says.
The outages come amid several amber and yellow weather alerts for snow and ice.
These warn of “strong winds bringing blizzard conditions” and up to 16 inches of snow to the area stretching from Stoke-on-Trent to Durham.
A separate amber alert covers Wales and the West Midlands and advises of similar “significant disruption”.
A yellow warning for snow and ice covers northern Scotland until 10am on Thursday, along with central and southern areas of England and Wales from midnight until 7am.
Another yellow warning for snow and ice covers north-east England and south-east Scotland from 5pm on Wednesday until 7am on Thursday.
A fourth yellow warning for snow covers all of the UK north of Birmingham, spanning from 7am on Thursday until 2pm on Friday.
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