Northern Ireland may be in for 'quite a bit more snow' this week as Met Office reveals snowiest places - meanwhile at least 50 flights cancelled and around one-fifth of all schools were shut today
Northern Ireland could be in for another significant snowy blast towards the end of this week, a Met Office forecaster has said.
It comes as the agency revealed the snowiest places in Northern Ireland during this recent spell.
In addition, Belfast International Airport told the News Letter that from the start of Sunday until 4pm yesterday, 50 flights had been cancelled at the airport, whilst – at time of writing – least 31 schools are set to close on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, a yellow weather warning for ice remains in force for all of Northern Ireland, lasting from 5pm yesterday until 10am today.
The yellow warning signals that people should expect “some injuries from slips and falls on icy surfaces,” as well as “increased risk of car accidents”.
Met Office forecaster Liam Eslick told the News Letter: “We have a low-pressure system coming across later in the week.
“There’s still quite a bit of uncertainty. If it comes further north, then it’s likely Northern Ireland will see a bit more snow later in the week.”
However, the “preferred” prediction is “that it will move further south”, avoiding the province.
Asked if the low-pressure system, wherever it moves, could spell heavy snow, he said: “Potentially. It all depends where it is.
“If it is further north, we will see quite a bit more snow and strong winds, but at the moment we can’t say exactly how the system will behave.”
As to the snow that has already fallen, he has figures dating from when the snow began to fall at the weekend to about 3pm yesterday (all of which are rounded down, and are manually collected by a member of staff measuring the depth of snow lying at each station).
The location with the deepest amount of snow was Castlederg in Tyrone, with 9cm.
This was followed by Lough Fea in Londonderry with 8cm, then Aldergrove in Antrim with 4cm.
This is much higher than in England, where snowfall peaked at Bridlington in Humberside, at 6cm.
But was nowhere near the Scottish maximum of 38cm, recorded in Aberdeenshire (in fact, another station in Banffshire recorded a depth of 52cm – but since it is an unmanned station, the reading is treated with caution by the Met Office).
Mr Eslick said that the last time Northern Ireland had a comparably snowy period was March 1 last year, when a depth of 12cm fell at Loughnavar Forest, Fermanagh.
A spokeswoman for Belfast International Airport said: “There have been 50 cancellations [since Sunday].
“The airport is operational but there may be some delays to flights.”
No-one from Belfast City Airport was able to say how many flights had been cancelled.
Stena Line said it had not had to cancel any ferries to or from GB.
In all, there were 207 school closures due to the snow and ice, of which 151 were primary schools – equating to 19.7% of all primary schools.
Just outside the hamlet of Derrytrasna, on the southern side of Lough Neagh, local Sinn Fein and SDLP activists said that a school bus skidded off the road, as did a car.
The PSNI said it did not have details on either event, and it transpired that the bus was operated by Translink, and was not a school bus.
Translink said no passengers were on board.