The painfully cold weather system that put much of the Midwest into a historic deep freeze lingered on Thursday and continued to break historic records with parts of Illinois and Iowa recording temperatures of -38F and -30F respectively. 

The frigid conditions canceled more than 2,300 flights and over 1,500 delays on Thursday, while the number of deaths blamed on the cold climbed to 13.

Chicago’s temperature dropped to a low of around -21F on Thursday, slightly above the city’s lowest-ever reading of -27F in January 1985. Milwaukee’s low was -25F. Minneapolis recorded -24F, and wind chills were as low as -38F, an improvement from a day earlier. Rockford, Illinois, saw a record low temperature of -31F on Thursday, while Cedar Rapids, Iowa, set a daily record low of -30F.

The extreme cold also settled in over the Northeast on Thursday. In western New York, a storm that dumped up to 20 inches of snow gave way to subzero temperatures and dangerous wind chills. The arctic conditions caused problems from Buffalo to Brooklyn, where about 200 firefighters battling an early morning blaze in a commercial building took turns getting warm on buses. 

The phenomenon caused surreal scenes throughout the region, including Lake Michigan freezing over, parts of Niagara Falls solidifying into frozen stillness and blocks of ice covering the river in downtown Chicago.

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The Met Office is predicting thundersnow in parts of the country tonight – a rare combination of snow and thunder and lightning that only occurs a few months of the year.

Thundersnow can see between two and four inches of snowfall per hour – as drivers skidded off slippery snow-covered roads across the country today. 

Photographs showed car crashes in the likes of Derbyshire and Scotland – while a video revealed the top layer of the sea had frozen in Whitstable, Kent, due to the sub-zero temperatures.

Snow was first seen in northern Scotland and the Western Isles late last week – but it has crept down through the likes of County Durham and Cumbria towards Birmingham and then London today.

Met Office warnings for ice remain in place across the whole of Britain throughout today and into tomorrow as cold air moves in – with showers forecast to continue to bring rain, sleet or snow as the day progresses.  

Excited Londoners posted videos online of snowfall ahead of temperatures falling to possibly -12C (10F) tonight, breaking the current record for this winter of -10.8C (13F) which was set last Friday at Braemar in Aberdeenshire.

Simon Partridge from the Met Office told MailOnline: ‘We had some [thundersnow today], a little bit in Northern Ireland, there was a touch in north east Wales, in the Cheshire area for a time.

‘There’s also been lightning strikes just off the south east coast. Tomorrow it’s less likely to see any thundersnow but there will still be some showers but not on the scale we’ve seen today.’

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Met Office warnings for ice (pictured) remain in place today

Mr Partridge added: ‘There may be more in the next couple of hours in south east England. It’s the same as any other thunderstorm, just that it’s cold.’

However, significant flurries are expected to remain limited to higher ground. Temperatures in London and Cardiff are expected to peak at 5C (41F), while Birmingham will see highs of 3C (37F) and 2C (36F) in Edinburgh. 

Temperatures have fallen to at least -7C (19F) for four nights in a row now – with -7.6C (18F) in Aboyne yesterday, -9.6C (15F) in Kinbrace on Sunday, -9.5C (15F) in Altnaharra on Saturday and -10.8C (13F) in Braemar last Friday. 

Highways England warned motorists that it was snowing ‘quite heavy’ on the M62 trans-Pennine route, where efforts were under way to keep the road open using ploughs and salt.

In Cornwall, the A30 was partially blocked following two separate multi-vehicle crashes caused by a heavy hail storm at about 10am on the road at Launceston and Bodmin Moor, with icy conditions also reported. 

On the M6 snow caused the closure of a sliproad at junction four overnight, but it was reopened in the early hours. Meanwhile a fleet of 32 gritters was out in south-west Scotland where Transerv described conditions as ‘Baltic’. 

Up to an inch of snow is due to fall on high ground from the Peak District northwards and in North Wales. In Scotland, up to four inches of snow was expected overnight in the Highlands.

Some light snow was also seen down in South East England as the wintry front moved through from the North West.

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