Here is the latest weather update from Alan Goodman, the Met Office Regional Advisor for North West England.

An end of the current very cold spell is now in sight but we must negotiate three more frosty days and nights before less cold air starts to spread in from the Atlantic on Thursday.

Last night saw another severe frost over much of the North West, especially in Cumbria.

Notable minimum temperateus included the following:

Shap: -14.3C

Spadeadam -8.4C

Carlisle -10.9C

Keswick -10.2C

Blackpool Airport -7.6C

Preston Moor Park -7.6C

Rochdale -7.7C

Woodford -6.5C

Temperatures were lowest over Cumbria due to the predominantly clear skies (lack of fog) and substantial snow cover.

Today will be a largely dry, if again very cold day. There wil be some sunshine around but with patchy freezing fog, more especially (but not exclusively) affecting parts of Cheshire, Merseyside and Greater Manchester.

Like yesterday this may prove very reluctant to shift and in a few places could linger most of the day.

Temperatures will struggle to get above freezing and anywhere the fog persists will amost certainly remain below.

This evening and overnight the tail end of a weather system drifting slowly southwards through the Irish Sea may bring some snow flurries/showers southwards across Cumbria and into Lancashire later in the night, although amounts of snow should be generally small.

Elsewhere will remain dry with another widespread hard frost inland and lowest temperatures in the -5C to -10C range, although across Cumbria, the cloud should prevent temperatures dropping as low as last night.

Into Tuesday and those snow flurries will drift a little further south, perhaps reaching Merseyside and Greater Manchester before tending to fade away through the day.

Cloud in general will be more extensive across the region and once again temperatures will struggle to reach zero Celsius with typical maxima in the range -2C to 0C.

Another hard frost will follow on Tuesday night with Wednesday looking dry with more in the way of sunshine but still very cold, temperatures again struggling to exceed freezing.

The significant change in the current pattern will begin to take shape on Thursday as less cold Atlantic air starts to feed across the UK.

The change is not expected to be accompanied by any significant precipitation, it will likely be simply a case of increasing cloud and breeze gently lifting the temperatures with 2 to 5C likely during Thursday and perhaps reaching the dizzy heights of 5 to 8C by Friday.

Some intermittent light rain/drizzle will likely affect Cumbria in particular as the milder air establishes itself. With this 'gentle' transition to less cold conditions ot is hoped that the thaw will proceed without any major impacts.

A severe weather 'Advisory' remains in force across the region to cover the ongoing risk of icy roads."