First snow arrives (From Witney Gazette)

First snow arrives

4:00pm Wednesday 24th January 2007

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THOUSANDS of travellers in the South East have faced delays after a dusting of snow disrupted rail services.

And more problems have been forecast, with up to 15cm of snow set to hit Kent tonight.

A band of snow moved south overnight leaving a covering of up to two centimetres in some areas.

Further heavy snowfalls are expected in Kent on Wednesday night and Thursday morning, which could start to build up.

The deepest snow recorded by the Met Office was 4cm (1.6 inches) in parts of Oxfordshire with about 3cm in northern Hampshire, forecaster Chris Almond said.

Elsewhere the average had been up to 2cm (0.8 inches).

January has so far been unseasonably mild with its fair share of winter sun, but the county awoke this morning to a blanket of snow.

Oxfordshire County Council deployed its gritters and roads into Oxford early today were running as normal with no major hold-ups reported.

Forecasters predicted the snow showers would continue "intermittently".

The Met Office has issued severe weather warnings for much of the country.

MeteoGroup UK forecaster Tony Conlan said: "We have had a bit of snow moving south through England and Wales overnight, but it has not been snow everywhere - in some areas it has been rain such as the west coast."

He said there would be further wintry showers over, mainly, parts of eastern England but nowhere was expecting much in the way of an accumulation of snow because the air was not quite cold enough

Last week, gale force winds battered Oxfordshire causing chaos with trees uprooted and power lines down.

The week before, torrential rain and severe flooding hit parts of the county.

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