Emergency services, councils and transport bosses across the north-west of England are bracing themselves for more severe weather, just days after the region was hit by widespread and severe flooding.
Amber weather warnings for snow and ice issued by the Met Office mean “significant disruption” is expected from 21:00 GMT on Saturday and they will remain in force throughout Sunday.
A yellow warning of heavy rain and thawing snow throughout Sunday means there could be further flooding in some areas, leading to transport disruption, according to the BBC Weather Centre.
Torrential rainfall late on New Year’s Eve and into New Year’s Day led to homes being evacuated in many parts of the North West.
Flooding also caused major disruption on the roads and the cancellation of trains across Greater Manchester, Cheshire, Merseyside and Lancashire.
A spokesman for Transport for Greater Manchester said “the last few days have been challenging”.
Despite going through a challenging few days, he said they were still prepared “for anything the weather can throw at us”.
On Thursday, Greater Manchester’s Mayor Andy Burnham said the north-west of England’s weather was becoming “highly unpredictable”.
He said “once-a-century” weather events were now happening “every year or so”.
He also promised to examine the response to the recent flooding.Danny Vaughan, from TfGM, said: “The floods are not something I’ve personally seen before to that extent in Manchester, but the transport network coped reasonably well, even if the rail services suffered.”
Speaking about the freezing conditions forecast for this weekend, Nikki Berry from the BBC Weather Centre said: “This weather is not particularly unusual for January.
“Snow and ice warnings are issued for north-west England most years in January.
“Amber warnings for snow are a little more unusual but there was one covering high parts of northern England during Storm Bert in November last year.”