Prankster dupes BBC weather forecaster by sending in snow picture claiming his name is 'I C Rhodes'

A prankster duped a weather forecaster on the BBC by pretending his name was “I C Rhodes”.

BBC Weather’s Simon King was talking to viewers about the UK’s frosty forecast on Tuesday in front of a background which showed a road blanketed in snow in Strathaven.

However, eagle-eyed viewers noticed the picture was sent in by a prankster called “I C Rhodes”.

The windup was branded “genius” by some on social media, while another wrote: “A photo of a snowy road has been sent in by ‘I C Rhodes’. I think the BBC have been had here.”

“Someone had fun this morning submitting their weather photo,” another person wrote on Twitter, as others branded the joke “hilarious” and a “fantastic effort”.

The snow joke comes as Britain braces itself for the coldest night of the winter so far, with “significant snowfall” likely to cause further travel delays and school closures.

Temperatures of minus 10C are possible in parts of the country in the early hours of Thursday, with this winter’s record of minus 10.8C expected to be broken, the Met Office warned.

Manchester and Liverpool airports were at a standstill on Wednesday morning and several schools in the cities closed their doors because of the harsh conditions.

Flights have since resumed at Liverpool Airport and Manchester Airport has reopened one of its runways after the initial closure.

The deepest snowfall recorded by the Met Office at 9am on Wednesday was 11cm at Tulloch Bridge in Inverness-shire. Depths of 9cm were also recorded in Thomastown in Co Fermanagh and Spadeadam in Cumbria.