Two weather warnings have been issued for Devon with a chance of snow and ice forming overnight.

An amber warning of snow for the South West was issued earlier today and is valid from 11:45am to 11:59pm tonight, say the Met Office.

A yellow warning predicting ice in Cornwall, Plymouth and Torbay is valid from midnight tonight until midday on Sunday.

Snow and ice are also expected in Dorset and Somerset over the next 24 hours.

Areas of Dartmoor have already seen a light covering of the white stuff today with rain turning to sleet and snow over higher ground.

Temperatures are around freezing on moorland areas such as PostBridge and Lettaford with some snow settling on hills.

A spokesperson for the Met Office said: "A band of wet weather over western parts of the United Kingdom on Saturday morning will move slowly east and southeastwards across the United Kingdom during the day.

"As it does so it will readily turn to sleet and snow away from western and southwestern coastal areas giving accumulations of 2-5cm in places and 5-10cm widely across parts of central and eastern England.

"The public are advised to take extra care and that the ice and snow is likely to lead to travel disruption.

The Westcountry suffered some of the coldest conditions in Britain yesterday after temperatures plunged to overnight lows of minus 11 degrees in rural areas.

Emergency food parcels were offered to the elderly to tide them over the weekend and a homeless charity called for supplies of warm clothing to help rough sleepers in Cornwall as demand spiralled. Listeners to BBC Radio Cornwall phoned in to report the lowest temperatures around the county, with Coades Green, to the east of Bodmin Moor, recording an Arctic minus 11C.

Temperatures plummeted to minus nine degrees in Tintagel during the early hours of Friday morning, and minus eight degrees were recorded at Altarnun, near Bodmin.

In Devon, officially recorded lows of minus six were registered at Barnstaple and Dunkeswell, while Plymouth managed minus five.

A fleet of gritting lorries were out salting 1,700 miles of Devon’s main routes between 2.30pm and 7pm yesterday, and again at 4am this morning, as road surface temperatures were set to drop to as low as minus 10 in places.

Councillor Stuart Hughes, Devon County Council’s cabinet member for highways, said: “I would urge drivers to take extra care when travelling, particularly overnight. Ice is a potential problem across the county because road surface temperatures are staying so low.”

The Met Office raised fears for the elderly and ill by issuing its first country-wide Level 3 Cold Weather Alert of the winter.

The alert, which is the second most serious, is tied in to the Government’s Cold Weather Plan and is relayed to organisations such as Age UK, which help the elderly through winter.

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