General election: Cold and wet weather for polling day as voter turnout expected to be key factor for result

The UK is predicted to have a cold and wet election day across the country with two weather warnings in place for ice in Scotland.

Voters will need to wrap up warm as they head to the polls on Thursday with rain throughout the day and temperatures in single figures for much of the country.

Weather forecasters have said surfaces and roads could be slippery, with voters advised to take care when walking or driving.

Luke Miall, a meteorologist for the Met Office, said there will be a “cold start to the day for many” with frost and ice around early in the morning.

Temperatures are expected to be about 4-7C in northern areas and about 9-10C in southern areas.

The first cold weather warning stretches from Perth, north through central Scotland, to Wick, while the other covers an area between Thornhill and Lanark further south.

Both warnings will be in place from 6pm on Wednesday until 10am on Thursday morning.

“We have showers passing through many parts of the UK today, and there's a risk of that turning to ice and there could be some snow in parts of Scotland,” Oli Claydon, a Met Office spokesperson, said.

However, Mr Claydon said wintry showers were only expected in areas above 200m.

“We are not expecting they will cause any real disruption,” he added.

There has been speculation over whether poor weather could affect the turnout in Thursday’s vote, which is the first general election in December for nearly 100 years.

However, Chris Hanretty, a politics professor at Royal Holloway University, investigated the link between rainfall and turnout in the 2016 EU referendum and found “no statistically significant link” between the two.

“The effects of weather on turnout are small, if they exist, and the effects on vote share are tiny (less than one fifth of one per cent in an extreme case),” Mr Hanretty concluded.

High turnout is one of the factors that could cause an upset for Thursday's election, in which Labour hopes to prevent the Conservatives from securing a majority.

Even if the effects of weather on turnout are minor, they could play a part in North East Fife, where the SNP beat the Liberal Democrats by just 2 votes in 2017.

Wendy Chamberlain, the Lib Dem candidate for tomorrow's election, told the Press Association that she believes poor weather could influence the final result.

“There is one part of the constituency near the north, Gauldry, and we were going up it and I said if it's snowing on 12 December, this is probably a place we're not getting to,” Mr Chamberlain said.

“I think it means that postal votes will be quite critical and a lower turnout might have an impact as well.”

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