THE Met Office has issued a yellow warning for ice in Wirral as temperatures plummet.

The warning covers the North West, including Merseyside, Cheshire East, Cheshire West and Chester.

Freezing conditions will affect most parts of the region with clear skies and no cloud cover.

The public are being urged to take care on untreated roads and paths hit by frost.

Saturday is forecast to be frosty but many areas will stay dry and enjoy sunny spells.

Met Office forecaster Rebecca Simpson said: ''Despite the sunshine it's not feeling particularly warm with cold northerly winds bringing air down from the Arctic.

''Temperatures are widely below freezing overnight, potentially even as low as minus 10C across the Highlands of Scotland.

Early next week the forecast is expected to be changeable with showers or longer spells of rain, sleet and snow.

With winter weather finally taking hold many places across the UK saw a covering of snow during the week, causing travel disruption.

Network Rail said they had thousands of rail engineers working ''day and night'' to prevent delays to travel.

Yesterday the Highways Agency said staff were out across the network treating the M53 from 2am in a bid to prevent accidents.