How to use the online alarm clock
Get your Met Office ice warning check ready now, before road conditions affect the morning. An alarm set for 8:43 am gives you a clear moment to read the latest notice, check the affected area and adjust your plans if needed. That still leaves a useful window before 9:00 am for finding gloves, clearing the windscreen or allowing extra travel time.
A silent phone could make this particular reminder easy to miss, so check the sound setting and alarm volume while preparing for the Met Office update. A quick test tone can confirm that the alert will be audible without making you wait until 8:43 am to discover a problem. Keep the browser alarm active and the phone awake; otherwise the Met Office warning check may pass without a sound.
As the ice check approaches, household and street noise often rises quickly: kettles, radios, traffic and people leaving for work can mask a brief alert. Place the phone nearby on a hard surface, where vibration adds a second noticeable cue, rather than leaving it under bedding or inside a bag. At this early hour, that small change makes the alarm easier to notice amid a busier background.
Common questions
Can I change the sound?
Yes, there is a short list of tones to pick from before you press Start. Softer sounds are easy to sleep through, so a firmer bell tends to be the safer choice for anything early in the morning.
Will it still be right when the clocks change?
Yes. It reads your device's local clock, so the move between GMT and BST at the end of March and October is picked up automatically, as long as the computer's date, time and time zone are set correctly.
Can I use this on a phone?
It works in a mobile browser, but phones lock the screen and suspend background tabs far more readily than a laptop does, which can stop the alarm sounding. For anything important, a desktop or a plugged-in laptop is the steadier option.
Does the alarm still work if I close the tab?
No. Everything runs inside this page, so closing the tab — or quitting the browser altogether — ends the countdown there and then. Leaving it open in the background is all it asks, and switching to another tab makes no difference.
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