Snow and ice alerts to be followed by stormy winds and rain across Scotland

Snow and ice alerts remain in effect across Scotland on Friday, but they are set to be replaced by wind and rain as stormy weather brings milder air across the country.

The Met Office warning gusts of up to 70mph and wintry showers could bring disruption to transport and travel.

Depending on how “powerful” conditions develop over the next 24 hours, the strong winds could become a new named storm – Storm Isha.

A yellow warning for snow and ice warning covering northern Scotland has been extended east into the Grampian region and across the Northern Isles.

People in the norther Highlands, Orkney and Shetland have been urged not to travel amid “extremely challenging” road conditions.

The alert is in place until 3pm on Friday, while a similar warning across Scotland’s south, including Glasgow and Edinburgh, expires at 12pm.

The biggest snow depths recorded on Thursday morning were Altnaharra at 34cm, Wick at 27cm, Lerwick at 20cm and Stornoway at 13cm.

Tulloch Bridge recorded the lowest temperature across Scotland overnight at -13.6C, Dalwhinnie at -12.3C, Drumnadrochit at -11.7C and Achnagart at -10.9C.

The UK had its coldest night of the winter so far on Tuesday when Dalwhinnie in the Highlands experienced a temperature of -14C.

Getty Images

Overnight temperatures in Scotland again fell below freezing on Friday, with data indicating that the mercury dipped to -10C in Eskdalemuir, Dumfries and Galloway, at around 8pm on Thursday.

However, the mercury climbed upward in the region from then on, with the same village sitting at minus 1C at 5am on Friday, as per preliminary Met Office data.

A change to wet and windy weather is on the way into the weekend…🌬️☔👇 pic.twitter.com/g7lwXtBXmV

— Met Office (@metoffice) January 18, 2024

From Saturday to Monday the weather is forecast to turn milder, with wet and windy conditions expected through the weekend and into next week.

The heaviest rain is expected on Sunday – with 30mm to 50mm falling widely and the potential for peaks of 80mm to 100mm over hills, the forecaster said.

Milder conditions will also result in the thaw of lying snow.

A yellow weather warning for rain has been issued for Sunday and Monday, covering most of the country, with a yellow wind warning issued for parts of Scotland.

Throughout Friday we see a ridge of high pressure moving in, the centre of which is across the south of the UK, which puts Scotland on the northern side of that.

This means the isobars are tightly packed, and therefore it will be turning increasingly windy.

But as we move onto the other side of this ridge of high pressure, the wind direction shifts to a south westerly, combined with low pressure means we see things turning milder across the country with frontal systems moving in from the west to start the weekend.

This means overall things are turning wetter, windier and milder for the weekend. We have a powerful jet stream coming out of North America that fuels an area of low pressure and pushes it towards us on Sunday with the potential that it will be very windy across the country but in particular southern Scotland.

Yesterday the met office issued a yellow weather warning for strong winds for Sunday, and the fact the warning came out so far in advance gives a good indication that things are looking particularly bad, and today the warning was tweaked slightly with an additional rain warning added too.

We’ll be keeping an eye on this over the next 24 hours with the potential that this could be a named storm, making it potentially our second of the year, and our 9th of the storm season so far, but at the moment there is still uncertainty about the precise tracking and impact of the low pressure on Sunday.

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