Parts of eastern England could see up to 10cm of snow on Saturday as forecasters warned of the potential for “significant disruption”.

The Met Office has issued an amber weather warning for snow across East Anglia, which is in place from 5am, while large parts of the UK, including Scotland, northern England, the East Midlands and the South East, are covered by yellow warnings.

Temperatures overnight on Friday are expected to get as low as minus 6C in Yorkshire and minus 3C in East Anglia, but will hover around freezing during the day in areas where snow settled, the Met Office said.

Places such as Newcastle and Norwich may drop to minus 1C overnight, with fog patches in some places.

Luke Miall, meteorologist at the Met Office, said patches of snow could even reach down into parts of Greater London.

“The east of England is the area where we can see the highest impact from the snowfall,” he said.

“In terms of the amount of snowfall, we’re likely to see in the region of one to three centimetres quite widely within that area but potentially as much as five to 10 centimetres in some places.

“That’s a fairly decent amount of snow and enough to cause some fairly significant disruption.”

The Met Office amber warning, which covers large areas of Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk, will be in place until 2pm on Saturday.

Winter weather Jan 15th 2021
A motorist driving near Auchterarder, Perthshire (Andrew Milligan/PA)

It states that “a band of rain and heavy snow may lead to travel disruption”.

Mr Miall said the heavy snowfall would begin to ease later on Saturday, creating the risk of slippery conditions and icy roads and pavements, and urged people to check weather updates.

“It’s hard to get the exact messaging correct because the advice from the Government is to stay at home to protect ourselves from the virus but obviously people are still able to go out for essentials,” he said.

“A snow event could cause significant disruption to even those essential trips that people need to make, so we are advising the public to stay up to date with the latest information on the warnings as the weather develops.”

But temperatures are expected to rise on Saturday afternoon to around 2C in the east.

South-west England will be the mildest region, which could see highs of 10C or 11C.

Winter weather Jan 15th 2021
The River Roding after it burst its banks in Abridge, Essex (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

Mr Miall added that despite the “impactful” weather at the weekend, conditions will become wetter going into Monday and Tuesday before another cold spell later in the week.

The snow warnings follow bad weather on Friday which caused disruption to further rollout of Covid vaccinations, with Leeds University delaying the opening of its asymptomatic Covid-19 test centre.

Over-80s who were due to receive their Covid-19 vaccine at Newcastle’s Centre for Life were told they could rebook rather than risk making a trip in the icy conditions.

Northumbria Police said 17 vehicles were involved in a succession of crashes on a stretch of the Coast Road in North Tyneside.

Emergency services were called to four separate incidents within a matter of hours on Friday morning.

Freezing fog patches and plummeting temperatures also led to a loss of gas supply to approximately 700 homes in the Hebden Bridge area.

In Bottesford, Leicestershire, cars made their way through a flooded road and the River Roding in Essex burst its banks.

A large swathe of England was covered by 27 flood warnings on Friday afternoon.