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Official white Christmas but more snow to come

BBC Snow plough in BiggarBBC
A snow plough makes its way through Carlops in the Scottish Borders

The Met Office has said Scotland officially recorded a white Christmas.

The forecaster confirmed sleet or snow fell at five of its weather stations across the UK on 25 December.

Edinburgh was one of three locations where at least one flake of snow fell in Scotland and another two recorded snow in Northern Ireland. However, most areas were too mild to see snow.

Yellow "be aware" weather warnings for ice and snow remain in place across most of Scotland until Tuesday.

More snow fell on Boxing Day as the Christmas Day warnings that began at 21:00 continued until 18:00 and new yellow warnings were issued from 18:00 to 15:00 on Tuesday.

Met Office meteorologist Tom Morgan said: "Officially it was a white Christmas but, of course, a lot of people think of those perfect deep-snow Christmas card scenes and actually we didn't really see any snow settle at lower levels yesterday.

"What we define a white Christmas as is just a few snowflakes falling, even if it's mixed with rain, so it's a technical white Christmas but, for most places, particularly in England and Wales, it was too mild."

Met Office Met Office warningsMet Office
Most of Scotland is covered by warnings for ice and snow on Monday and Tuesday

In Scotland, the forecaster recorded snow at Edinburgh's Gogarbank weather station, Loch Glascarnoch in Ross and Cromarty, and Altnaharra in Sutherland.

Across the Irish Sea, snow fell in Glennane, County Armagh, and at Lough Fea in Londonderry.

"Most of the day was too mild for snow and the showers were falling for rain, but in the evening it got colder and we started to see those showers turn to sleet and then to snow," said the meteorologist.

PA Media Snow fall in Biggar in South Lanarkshire.PA Media
Snow fall in Biggar in South Lanarkshire on Boxing Day

But for most places, the snow came too late to declare a white Christmas.

"We've got snow on the ground quite widely across Scotland this morning, even at lower levels," Mr Morgan added.

"If the colder air had been a little bit earlier to arrive then it would have been a white Christmas, but it's certainly a white Boxing Day for some of us."

Last Christmas 6% of Met Office stations recorded snow fall, but just 1% had snow lying on the ground. In 2017 some 11% of sites recorded snow falling.

However, forecasters have to go back to 2010 to find a 25 December where people would remember waking up to snow on the ground.

On Christmas Day, the Met Office recorded a high of 12.7C in Chertsey, Surrey, while Loch Glascarnoch recorded the lowest temperature of 2.7C.