The Met Office has extended a weather warning of snow and ice across more of Scotland, as forecasters said travellers could face transport disruption.

The forecaster had issued a yellow snow and ice warning from 3pm on Tuesday until midday on Wednesday covering the Highlands, Western Isles, Orkney, Shetland and parts of Argyll and Bute and central Scotland.

On Tuesday evening, the Met Office extended the warning further east and south to include Glasgow and Aberdeen.

It warned that accumulations of up to 3cm of snow are likely quite widely across the warning area, with perhaps another 5-8cm over the north-west Highlands, while icy surfaces will be an additional hazard.

The Met Office has also issued a yellow warning of snow covering Northern Ireland, north Wales and northern England from 6am on Thursday to 6am on Friday.

It forecast that up to two centimetres of snow is possible at lower levels, 2-5cm on ground above 200 metres, and as much as 15-25cm above 400m.

There is a risk of power cuts, travel delays and a “slight chance that some rural communities could become cut off”, the Met Office warned.

It added that the snow will ease later in the day on Thursday, and may turn back to rain or drizzle, especially in the south and east of the warning area.

Met Office meteorologist Liam Eslick said most disruption this week was likely to occur on Thursday.

He said: “With the snow there is a chance that you could see some rail and air travel cancellations.

“If the snow does reach lower levels then we could also see some local impacts with travel disruption.”

He added that an easterly wind meant the highest accumulations of snow were likely on the “eastern upslopes running across the Pennines and the northern Welsh mountains”.

The forecaster added that it looked like a “cold spell” was on its way as an area of high pressure moves in over the UK towards next week.

Mr Eslick said: “It looks like we could see some cooler conditions starting to come back towards next week and it does look like it’s going to stick around towards the back end of February.”