Snow and ice warnings remain in place today after thousands were left without power in freezing conditions overnight.
The Met Office has issued a new warning covering much of the West Coast and central Scotland, stretching from Dumfries to Glasgow, Edinburgh and Fort William.
The alert lasts from 6am on Friday morning until midnight.
Previous yellow warnings snow and ice covering northern Scotland and north east England have been extended until noon on Friday.
It comes as the Scottish Government declared a major incident for Shetland on Tuesday after thousands of homes were left without power amid plummeting temperatures.
It will be another cold start this Wednesday morning with warnings ⚠️ for #snow, ice and strong winds active across the UK
Here is the latest forecast 👇 pic.twitter.com/eY3KaxzZlc
— Met Office (@metoffice) December 13, 2022
SSEN Distribution is working to restore supplies to about 2,800 homes, but warned full restoration is only likely by the end of the week.
The energy firm's spokesman Graeme Keddie told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme this morning: “Firstly I’d like to apologise to those customers still without power and reassure them that we are making every effort to get to them.”
He added: “This morning, as of overnight, we have 2,800 homes without power across Shetland. We made very good progress yesterday reconnecting 1,000 homes and hope to make continued progress today, particularly as the travel situation we talked about, the flights restarting, and also we’ve got 15 additional line crews are coming over on this morning’s freight ferry and more by helicopter so that will make a real difference to restoration efforts.
“This has been a very concentrated and explosive weather event on Shetland which was far more severe than forecast.
We're sorry for the loss of supply affecting #Shetland. Due to heavy snowfall we have multiple faults on our network. Investigations and repairs are underway, and we aim to restore as many supplies as we can in stages, and we expect to have your power restored by 21:00. https://t.co/gNus5OHdPe
— ssencommunity (@ssencommunity) December 12, 2022
Earlier, minus 17.3C was recorded at Braemar in Aberdeenshire on Monday into Tuesday, making it the coldest place in the UK for the second night in a row.
Met Office spokesperson Becky White said that areas covered by the latest weather warnings could see up to 10cm of fresh snow on higher ground.
“We could see a good few new centimetres of snow accumulation,” she said.
“We could see around 1-4cms at lower levels and 5-10cm on higher ground across the Highlands.”
READ MORE: Scots islanders urged to stay home - as heavy snow brings power cuts
Snow and ice warnings are also in place in the South West until 10am on Wednesday.
Met Office yellow warning of snow and ice.
— BBC Scotland Weather (@BBCScotWeather) December 14, 2022
Valid from 6am Friday until midnight.
Disruption expected. Poor travelling conditions, especially on high ground.
Kirsteen. pic.twitter.com/DGeHstM7F9
“There will be a risk of ice across the country over the next few days, but particularly tonight,” she said.
“There is a band of rain moving in from the South West, but it may turn into snow as it reaches land.”
She added that the South West could see 1-2cm of snow at lower levels, and 1-10cms of snow at higher ground such as Dartmoor and Exmoor.
![Sheep in snowy conditions in the Peak District](http://image.assets.pressassociation.io/v2/image/production/d31a1c4be0007764b92210f83f3290ffY29udGVudHNlYXJjaGFwaSwxNjcxMDY0NDkx/2.70231855.jpg?w=640)
An ice warning is in place in eastern England until noon on Wednesday.
The national forecaster has also added a yellow ice warning in northern parts of Northern Ireland, including Belfast, from noon Tuesday until noon Wednesday.
Scores of schools across the UK were forced to close for a second on Tuesday day due to the cold weather.
READ MORE: Coldest night of the year as temperatures plunge below minus 15C
Councils from Aberdeenshire to Cambridgeshire reported school closures, for reasons including heating failure, burst pipes and snow and ice.
In Sheffield, engineers said they had just over 100 households left to reconnect to gas as of Tuesday evening after nearly 2,000 homes in the city lost supplies 11 days earlier when a burst water main filled the local gas network with more than a million litres of water.
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