County braced for snow blizzards

A man was rescued after his car become stuck in flood waters

Extreme weather was expected again for rural Gloucestershire on Monday night with snow blizzards forecast over the Cotswolds and Forest of Dean.

A Met Office spokesman said between 15 and 20cm (6-8in) of snow was likely, although the worst was expected to be over by 0900 GMT on Tuesday.

The rest of the county would not be as badly affected with 5cm (2ins) of snow expected in the early hours, he said.

A number of the county's schools were closed again on Monday.

Gloucestershire County Council has increased its gritting programme with a boost of 500 tonnes to its salt supplies from Cornwall County Council.

Running water

A man had to be rescued after his car became stuck in around 3ft of flood water on the main road between Gloucester and Stroud.

It happened close to the gates of St. Peter's High School. Gloucestershire Highways believe the flood was caused by water running off Robinswood Hill and through the school's playing fields.

Jason Humm from Gloucestershire Highways said: "There is definitely a lot of precipitation to come through the day, which is likely to fall as rain.

"The later it comes, the colder the temperatures.

"If it does fall as snow, then they're predicting very heavy snowfall across the county."

NHS Gloucestershire said it was well prepared to deal with more bad weather.

Its contingency procedures in place for community nursing, out-of-hours services and community hospital services, are said to be working well.

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