PEOPLE across Gwent woke up to a blanket of snow covering their neighbourhoods today, Wednesday.

A Met Office weather warning overnight forecast snowfall across many parts of South Wales, and those predictions proved accurate as wintry weather struck all across Gwent.

It meant widespread disruption for lots of families, as many schools in the region's five council areas announced they would be closing for the day.

The scale of school closures reflected how badly each part of Gwent had been impacted by the bad weather.

In Caerphilly county borough, the council had already announced around 50 school closures by 7.30am.

Other areas of Gwent seemed to fare better - in Newport, the city council only announced the closure of a handful of school sites for the snow.

There was disruption, too, for many public services including recycling collections in Blaenau Gwent and Torfaen.

The former also announced the closure of two of its recycling centres for the day.

And transport services were also affected, with bus firms Stagecoach and Newport Bus both announcing disruption to some routes in the morning.

Despite warnings of poor driving conditions on major roads like the M4 and the A465 Heads of the Valleys road, the emergency services did not announce any major incidents on the roads on Wednesday morning.

One lane of the motorway in Newport was closed for a short time while police removed an "obstruction", and there was also a report of some flooding on the M4 near the Caerleon turn-off.

Snow and sleet continued throughout the day, and with the Met Office weather warning lasting until 7am on Thursday, there was little sign of any relief from the bad weather.

In fact, the weather agency forecast more heavy snow for much of Gwent on Wednesday evening, with temperatures not expected to rise above one degree in many areas.

The warnings of disruption and poor conditions on Wednesday did not put off many people from enjoying the snow, which for most Gwent residents - especially in the south - was the first real sighting of the white stuff this winter.

Many of our readers, including members of our Camera Club group on Facebook, sent in magical photographs of winter landscapes, as well as of their family members and pets enjoying the snow.