Snow causes disruption across the West Midlands

The region woke up to a covering of snow and more fell throughout the day, with blizzard conditions in some areas of Staffordshire and the Black Country.

The rest of the UK was also under several inches of snow, with dozens of flights cancelled as Birmingham Airport suspended operations.

See our live blog below for details on how the day unfolded

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Around 70 flights were cancelled at Heathrow Airport, primarily because of problems at other airports, and flights were also cancelled at Bristol.

On the roads, parts of the M4 in Wales and M50 in Herefordshire were closed.

This afternoon, Birmingham Airport announced it was suspending operations for snow clearing.

Meanwhile, 10,000 households in parts of south Wales are being affected by power cuts.

• Latest school closures in West Midlands and Staffordshire

In the West Midlands more than 100 schools closed their doors meaning parents were forced to find alternative childcare.

There were 51 schools shut in Sandwell while in Dudley 50 primary and secondaries were closed along with seven special schools. Around 25 had closed in Wyre Forest.

Wolverhampton fared a little better with around a dozen schools in and around the city shut to pupils today.

There were 86 schools shut across the county of Staffordshire and 18 which have been closed in Walsall.

In Stafford and Sandwell bin collections have been suspended.

Meanwhile snow was affecting journeys on the county's roads.

In Hednesford, there was a crash involving a red Volkswagen Golf and a white Ford Transit van along Littleworth Road, at the junction of Rawnsley Road. It happened yesterday at around 6pm.

Snow began falling from 3pm yesterday, and continued throughout the night as temperatures dropped to -3C (26F) in many areas.

An amber weather warning was still in place for the West Midlands today with snow due all day, the heaviest expected to fall over lunchtime and bitterly cold conditions expected to last all weekend.

And snowfall could continue until tomorrow after, with temperatures not rising above -1C (30F). Winds of up to 30mph are also expected.

Cars struggle through the snow on Willenhall Road this morning

This morning, Network Rail said London Midland and Virgin services in the West Midlands were running as normal, but elsewhere Southern, Greater Anglia, South West Trains and the Eurostar are all running amended services on a number of routes or with speed restrictions because of the snow.

National Express West Midlands said buses were running normally for now, as was the Midland Metro.

The gloomy forecast throughout the week led to panic buying at some supermarkets.

At Morrisons in Cannock customers were snapping up the essentials.

General manager Geraint Arthur said: "There was a bit of panic buying yesterday and I'm anticipating we will experience peaks of buying during breaks in the weather today.

"But we are prepared for it. It is stable goods being bought like milk, bread, potatoes and soups."

At Waitrose in Penn, Wolverhampton, all the sliced bread had gone by 5.30pm yesterday and other essentials like milk were also running low.

Motorists were queuing out into the road at the store's petrol last night as they waited to fill up at the store's petrol forecourt.

At the 24-hour Asda supermarket by Molineux Stadium in Wolverhampton, duty manager Adrian Male said business had been "brisk" overnight and

at Morrisons in Willenhall, items such as bread and milk had sold out by late afternoon yesterday as shoppers rushed to stock up.

West Midlands Ambulance Service said call-outs had increased by up to 14 per cent overnight with slips, trips and falls as well as car crashes caused by the bad weather.

In a bid to ward off problems on the region's busiest routes gritting lorries started taking to the streets yesterday afternoon. In Wolverhampton a fleet of 10 lorries went out at 6pm last night and again at 3am this morning in a bid to keep the major roads of the city clear. They went back out again at 9am today.

In Staffordshire, there were 50 gritters and 60 snowploughs across the county out in force throughout the night.

Sandwell Council bosses had nine gritting lorries patrolling the borough gritting 250 miles of road each time they went out. Meanwhile, gritters hit the streets around Wyre Forest from 2pm yesterday in anticipation of the snowfall overnight. All main routes had been gritted by 9.30pm with twice the amount of salt being spread on roads served by 31 trucks. In Sandwell and Wolverhampton council bosses decided to call off all sports fixtures due to take place on local authority pitches this weekend due to safety reasons.

Sports clubs in Walsall have urged people to visit their websites to check if matches are still going ahead this weekend. Meanwhile a plea for donations has been made by Hi's and Lows emergency homeless shelter at The Crossing at St Paul's, in Darwall Street, Walsall which is open overnight during the cold period.