Scotland's wacky winter weather continues across country

Scotland hasn’t seen much of a typical winter so far, with soaring temperatures and no sign of the white stuff.

At the end of last year we saw temperatures reach 18.7C in Achfary, which was a December record. It beat the previous top December temperature of 18.3C, which was recorded at Achnashellach in 1948.

The high temperatures returned today and were very close to record breaking in some parts of the Highlands and Moray.

Today’s maximum temperatures weren’t as high as the values we had in December, however temperatures still peaked at 14.9C in Achnagart in the Highlands. These are our official Met Office figures although it is likely that a few spots managed to get closer to 16C.

Though not record breaking, this is still around 10 degrees above average for the time of year.

STV Weatherman Seán Batty said: “We’ve experienced some exceptional temperatures in the last few weeks, with records broken in some areas.

“This has been down to a semi-permanent area of high pressure which has been moved between the Azores, Spain and north Africa, which has been sending occasional plumes of warmer air our way.

“It looks like this will continue to happen in the coming weeks, although we’re likely to start seeing more cold shots than recently from the north west.”

As northern and north eastern areas experienced above average temperatures it was wind that caused disruption for many central and western parts of Scotland, after a yellow weather warning was issued yesterday.

Inverbervie and Lerwick recorded maximum gusts of 70mph, while the strongest gust recorded was 76mph at Loch Glascarnoch in the north Highlands.

Seán added: “Winds will remain strong overnight into Wednesday, although will slowly ease down for most of the country. That being said, gales will continue to affect the Northern Isles until Wednesday evening.

“A further spell of stormy weather is expected on Thursday, and more windy weather will affect Scotland this weekend with widespread gales again developing on Friday night and into Saturday.”