Severe gales are bringing travel disruption across the country after gusts of more than 80mph battered parts of Britain overnight.
Drivers were warned to only travel if necessary while railway passengers faced severe delays as trains collided with fallen trees and other debris blocking lines.
Forecasters issued yellow “be aware” wind warnings as gusts reached 83mph in Tibenham Airfield, near Norwich, and 78mph in Aberdaron, Wales, while police urged motorists to drive with “extreme caution” amid wintry conditions in Scotland.
Alison Rowat: Is bad weather turning Scotland into a snowflake nation?
UK Power Networks said more than 5,000 customers were affected by power cuts in the Geat Yarmouth area with hundreds more homes impacted across the east of England.
Met Office Spokesman Charlie Powell said the worst of the blustery conditions was over, adding: “In the last couple of hours the wind speeds have already started to come down significantly.”
Emergency services across the country received calls about weather-related incidents.
Alison Rowat: Is bad weather turning Scotland into a snowflake nation?
West Midlands Fire Service said no one was injured when a brick gable was blown off a house in the Stoke Heath area of Coventry.
Pictures posted on Twitter by crews at the city’s Foleshill fire station showed debris on the ground near the three-storey property.
Derbyshire Police received a large number of calls regarding fallen trees blocking roads.
National Rail reported widespread weather-related delays, including disruption caused by a train hitting a tree near Lower Sydenham in south-east London, and another colliding with a fence on the line near Sheerness-on-Sea in Kent.
A tree also fell on to the line in the Deal area of Kent, while a freight train struck two sheds that had blown on to the track between Newtown and Welshpool in Wales.
Alison Rowat: Is bad weather turning Scotland into a snowflake nation?
National Rail said level crossing barriers between Chester and Wrexham had been damaged by high winds, with replacement road transport running between Chester and Shrewsbury.
Damage to overhead power cables blocked lines between Colchester and Ipswich, and Birmingham and Redditch.
Poor weather also delayed journeys to and from London King’s Cross station after an object was caught in overhead electric wires between Peterborough and Stevenage.
During the night, temperatures dropped at low as minus 7C (19F) in Loch Glascarnoch while snowfalls continued to be topped up.
Alison Rowat: Is bad weather turning Scotland into a snowflake nation?
Eskdalemuir in Dumfries and Galloway recorded 36cm of lying snow, while Spadeadam in Cumbria, which escaped much of the snow on Wednesday, had 23cm, with up to 20cm on Wednesday night alone.
The Met Office amber weather warning of snow and ice ended at 5am and Police Scotland have downgraded their advice to “high risk”.
They said there is a high likelihood of disruption and delays on the roads.
Alison Rowat: Is bad weather turning Scotland into a snowflake nation?
Superintendent Calum Glenny said: “Despite some difficult weather conditions in the Dumfries and Galloway area which caused some disruption, the weather was not as severe as was first forecast.
“Thankfully, a significant number of motorists heeded the warnings which had been issued to avoid travelling on the roads and I’d like to thank them for doing so.”
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 hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel