A snow storm has left more than 110,000 homes and businesses without electricity in Northern Ireland. The severe weather is hindering efforts of restoring power.

Northern Ireland Electricity shared it was the first time in decades that an outage of such scale had occurred in the city.

NIE engineers and emergency crews have restored power to about 50,000 homes and businesses but 40,000 customers are still without power. Work to restore power to them is continuing into this afternoon and evening.

NIE spokeswoman Julia Carson last night warned that further problems were expected overnight.

"The severe weather is set to continue through tonight and into tomorrow and we are likely to see further damage to the network which will affect electricity supplies," she said.

Carson added, "The restoration process has been steady throughout the day and we are working to restore the customers as quickly and safely as possible.

"However, the atrocious weather conditions have made access very difficult and the high winds, combined with snow and icing, are still causing damage to the network.

"We are doing everything we can to get everyone back on supply as quickly and safely as possible, and have brought in additional emergency crews from ESB (Electricity Supply Board) in the Republic of Ireland."

"It will take until tomorrow until it starts to ease slightly, though still expect further falls throughout the day," said Laura Caldwell, weather forecaster with MeteoGroup.

"Things will ease away on Saturday night. Sunday will be pretty cloudy, though much drier."

NIE advises customers to contact NIE by phone on 08457 643 643 to receive the most-up-to-date information through a recorded message.

Whenever possible, calls will be answered by staff, however otherwise a separate facitily will be available to leave a message to report visible damage to the electricity network, such as broken poles or power lines.

Customers also may report faults online here.