AROUND 800 homes in Scotland were left without power on Christmas Day after gale-force winds wreaked havoc in the north of the country.
Some 3500 homes lost electricity during storms on Christmas Eve and around 800 were still without power yesterday afternoon. Residents in Banchory, Buchan and Aboyne in Aberdeenshire and Forres and Fochabers in Elgin were worst affected.
It came after gusts of up to 82mph buffeted Peterhead on Christmas Eve, while the rest of the country was lashed with winds of 50-60mph, causing Christmas attractions in Edinburgh to temporarily close.
Meanwhile, Stornoway recorded the UK's lowest air pressure in 127 years on Christmas Eve when barometer readings plunged to 936hPa amid winds close to 80mph.
Christmas travel plans were also disrupted for hundreds of people, with ferries and flights cancelled.
In a Christmas Day first, Caledonian MacBrayne ran special sailings to the Western Isles in a bid to get stranded travellers home to their families. However, the crossing to North Uist and Orkney remained cancelled due to bad weather.
Many flood warnings remain in place, particularly for Tayside where river levels have been high.
Forecaster Ben Windsor said winds were dying down in most parts, although the Met Office predicts that conditions will begin deteriorating again tonight.
He added: "There was some snow on higher ground yesterday but it's only really a white Christmas on the mountain tops where the rain begins to turn to snow at 300 metres and above."
The high winds on Christmas Eve also ripped off a portion of the roof at Thurso High School in Caithness, damaging two vehicles. Part of an empty building in Linkwood Road, Elgin, was damaged in a separate incident, with three families evacuated from nearby houses as part of the structure collapsed on to the road.
At the other end of the country, fallen trees and debris caused problems on some roads in the Borders, with a mudslide temporarily closing the A7.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article