More on the roads - and Staffordshire Police have released this advisory:

You can get more information from National Highways here, external.

An update from the M62 next - a road on which some drivers got stuck for hours overnight.

There are delays of at least three hours eastbound between junction 20 at Rochdale and junction 24 at Huddersfield, according to a fresh update from National Highways.

And there are delays of at least 90 minutes on the westbound carriageway between junctions 24 and 22.

With severe weather in the region, National Highways reiterates its advice, external to only drive if it's necessary.

You might be wondering if your school - or your child's school - is closed today.

If you live in England, Wales or Scotland, you can check if your child’s school is closed on your local council website via this link., external

For Northern Ireland, have a look here, external.

More details on what's in store for the day - here's the BBC's Matt Taylor with the forecast.

He says there'll be a difficult commute for many before the snow eases off through the morning.

Looking ahead to tomorrow, there's a risk of ice, with temperatures of -12C (10F) possible.

Simon King
BBC weather presenter and meteorologist

There has been a lot of snow overnight across Northern Ireland, north Wales, the Peak District and Pennine regions. Strong winds have added to the atrocious conditions with drifting snow and blizzards.

Major disruption is likely to continue for a while yet with amber warnings still in force in north Wales, the Peak District and Pennines.

However, the snow will start to clear through the morning.

As the snow clears to the south east though there’ll be some temporary snow in parts of the Midlands before that also clears.

By this afternoon there’ll be lots of sunshine but any snow on the ground won’t be disappearing as it’ll remain cold and with temperatures below freezing tonight, ice will be a big problem on Saturday morning.

Danny Savage
North of England correspondent

For the area north of the M62, the snow didn’t really get going until after 19:00 last night. It hasn’t let up much since.

What people in the amber weather warning zone in the north of England are now waking up to, is a deep covering. Key roads are closed, others are covered, some are impassable.

Expect many school closures to be announced imminently.

North Yorkshire Police have been dealing with numerous stranded vehicles.

The forecast is for an improvement from mid-morning onwards but it won’t be before the poor conditions have set the tone for many people's day.

James FitzGerald
Live reporter

Last night we heard warnings of "treacherous conditions" - and now we know how things have panned out, with drivers stuck for hours on the M62 and issues for motorists reported elsewhere as well.

I'm now taking over the live page along with my colleagues Anna Boyd and Victoria Lindrea.

Stay with us as we keep you posted on the weather and all the impacts it's having on the roads and beyond.

The ongoing cold spell has been caused by a storm named by the French weather service as Storm Larisa.

Met Office meteorologist Jonathan Vautrey said the storm has brought both low pressure - which lowers the temperature - and rain to the UK.

"We're on the northern side of the low pressure system and it's the southern side of that low pressure system that is going to be bringing particularly strong winds to parts of France," he said.

He added that the storm originated in the Atlantic before tracking its way eastward towards the UK.

"The weather fronts that are swirling around... have then been pushing into the cold air that has been in places across the UK and allowing that rain to start falling as snow," he said.

As might be expected, given the forecasters have been saying for a while that the Peak District and Pennines in northern England are going to be among the worst-affected areas, other routes across the hills are also affected by the snow.

The A57 Snake Pass between Manchester and Sheffield is closed, as is the A628 Woodhead Pass to the north.

Derbyshire County Council said it was closing six roads because of the weather.

You can get the latest on England's major roads from National Highways , externaland in Wales from Traffig Cymru/Traffic Wales, external.

David Stubbins set off from Wigan at around 11pm on Thursday for a journey to Wakefield that he expected would take an hour and 10 minutes.

At 2:10am this morning he was stuck on the M62 motorway near Rochdale and didn’t have much hope of arriving before 4am.

“We’ve just been stationary for pretty much over an hour now. We were creeping along for a while, but then for some reason we just ground to a halt,” he said.

“The gusts [of wind] are just crazy. They’re rocking the van I’m in all over the place.

“Luckily I’ve got some crisps and some water and a lot podcasts, and hopefully that’ll see me through the night.”

In the last hour, Leicestershire Police has tweeted to say the A46 at Groby near Leicester to the A50 at Markfield is closed due to the weather.

The force says motorists should consider alternative routes if possible "for the foreseeable future".

This is outside the area covered by today's amber weather warning, but is in a wide swathe of the Midlands and Wales which is subject to a yellow Met Office alert.

Kelvin Charles spoke to the BBC during the early hours of Friday morning and said he and his partner had been stuck on the M62 near Saddleworth for more than an hour and that, as of 02:00 GMT, there were "no signs as to when we're going to get off".

“The hard shoulder’s just been cleared by a snow plough but… with the wind it’s getting quite bad again,” he said.

He also described some motorists becoming impatient and attempting to drive through the snow on the lanes that had been closed.

Image source, Kelvin Charles/@iwiizkiid

In the last few minutes National Highways has tweeted that it has reopened one lane of the eastbound M62 but warns of continuing delays of about an hour.

Here's what we've been hearing overnight. Heavy snow has caused long delays on the M62 trans-Pennine motorway which runs from Liverpool in the west to Hull in the east.

Drivers reported stationary traffic on the eastbound carriageway between Rochdale in Greater Manchester and Huddersfield in West Yorkshire.

National Highways said two lanes had been closed between junctions 20 and 22, causing around six miles of tailbacks.

Dozens of Twitter users described spending hours stuck in standstill traffic early on Friday morning.

Some of the affected motorists said strong winds was causing the snow to drift back onto lanes just cleared by National Highways' snow ploughs.

It's 05:00 GMT and we're starting our live coverage now of the wintery weather which has many parts of the UK firmly in its grip at the moment.

Right now parts of Wales and northern England are subject to an amber severe weather warning from the Met Office for snow and ice.

We've been getting reports via social media overnight of problems affecting the M62 - the motorway which crosses the Pennines between Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire.

This area is right in the middle of one of the warning areas in England - which stretches from the north Midlands to the North East.

We'll try and keep you up-to-date on the latest as we get it.