The first full taste of winter weather has brought travel disruption to parts of Scotland with motorists urged to avoid part of the main route to the Highlands.
Met Office alerts for ice and snow were issued yesterday for large parts of the country and the A9, the main road to the Highlands, has been hit with a series of accidents.
Police said the Drumochter Pass, the highest part of the road at 462m (1516ft) above sea level, has been particularly affected with "significant delays" expected.
There are also warnings in place for high winds on the Forth, Erskine and Kessock bridges.
Weather forecast service MeteoGroup warned that conditions will continue be unsettled over the coming days as a deep area of low pressure forms in the North Atlantic, which will lead to a ''powerful'' storm.
Looking ahead to the coming week, a spokesman for the Met Office said Scotland will be the worst-affected part of the UK.
A spokesman said: ''Across the tops of the Scottish mountains it will be pretty horrendous with around 10cm or more of snow expected on higher ground."
Police Scotland said: "Emergency Services are currently dealing with several road traffic incidents on the A9 Perth to Inverness Road near to Drumochter Pass, Dalwhinnie, approximately 30 miles south of Aviemore.
"There are likely to be significant delays in the surrounding area whilst the incident is resolved and motorists are asked to avoid the area where possible."
The Met Office spokesman said it was too early to predict a White Christmas.
He added: ''It does look as though the unsettled weather theme will continue, but we can't really pin down any detail about the actual weather type on Christmas day itself. At this stage it's still a long way away before we could give precise detail.''
Transport Minister Derek Mackay visited a salt depot near Glasgow today to see the preparations that are being made for the wintry weather.
He also spoke with the Met Office, Police Scotland, Traffic Scotland and road operating companies to ensure that there is a coordinated response to weather problems.
Mr Mackay said: "While this weather is not unusual in Scotland at this time of year, some areas are seeing their first snowfall of the season.
"A wide range of agencies and organisations are working together to implement their response plans with the aim of keeping disruption in difficult conditions to a minimum.
"The efforts being made by the team here at Scotland Transerv are being replicated by the trunk road operating companies across the country and the focused response to weather events will continue throughout the winter.
"We have more salt in stock today than we used across the whole of last year and our winter control rooms are monitoring conditions 24/7 ensure the winter fleet are treating and patrolling where and when they are needed.
"Motorists can see details of where and when the gritters will be in operation through the interactive winter treatments map on the Traffic Scotland website and the latest live information on conditions is available on the Traffic Scotland Twitter feed, smartphone App, internet radio and website."
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