It's 10 years since whiteout conditions left Scotland in a deep freeze and a Scottish minister out of a job, recalls Sandra Dick. 

Crisp and white, the first snow of winter carpeted parts of the country earlier this week, turning the landscape into a Christmas card scene to complement the early decorations and twinkling trees.

Pretty as it was, the snow was a mere light dusting compared to 10 years ago this week.

Back then, Scots were in the grip of an Arctic blast that left countless motorists trapped, airports and schools shut, university exams cancelled, and one Scottish Government minister out of a job. 

READ MORE: Edinburgh thundersnow: Capital hit by second night of winter weather

As December 2010 dawned, winter arrived with a thump bringing with it Siberian winds from the north and east, up to 17 inches of snow in some areas and well below-zero temperatures.

And unfortunately for Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson, the big freeze would lead to what was branded a “total collapse” of Scotland’s transport infrastructure, catching him and road colleagues unawares. 

Speaking to Holyrood magazine earlier this week, Stevenson said “low blood sugar”, tiredness and officials who failed to brief him properly were to blame for blunders which led to his resignation. 

“I wasn’t eating, I wasn’t getting enough sleep, I was just utterly, utterly exhausted,” he told Holyrood magazine. “I was so run off my feet dealing with the problem that I lost a stone in weight in a single week.”

While 10 years have passed since the wintry weather brought havoc, for motorists trapped on the M8 for the night – coincidentally while Stevenson bedded down in the comfort of an Edinburgh hotel – memories of the freezing temperatures and the kindness of strangers who tried to help are probably only now beginning to defrost. 

Parts of the country had already experienced a wintry downfall days before, leading to the closure of the Forth Road Bridge due to snow, panic buying and a shortage of fuel.

To make it worse, gloomy weather forecasters warned of more on the way – and they weren’t wrong. Soon relentless blizzards were pummelling almost the entire country in wave after wave of snow and ice.

By the morning of Monday, December 6, the main motorway arteries of the central belt had ground to a halt. But instead of closing the M8, traffic continued to pour onto the road all day. 

By evening rush hour, the badly rutted road surface had frozen solid, lorries had lost their grip, and what seemed like endless queues of traffic blocked the M8 and M80, making it impossible for gritters to get through. 

The Herald:

While motorists there bore the brunt of the chaos other roads across Scotland were also impassable, including the A9 between Perth and Dunblane, the M90 near Perth, the A939 Ballater to Corgarff Road, and the A940 between Forres and Grantown were all closed.

It was only some 12 hours after the first M8 motorists had got stuck that the Government’s emergency response swung into what could only loosely be described as “action”.

READ MORE: What is thundersnow? Unusual weather as heavy snow causes travel disruption 

With Stevenson blaming the Met Office for failing to warn of the severity of the weather – despite those television weather forecasts at the time urging viewers to be cautious – there followed car crash comments and a boast that the horrific conditions that left drivers trapped for up to 20 hours, had been met with a “first-class response”. 

His time as transport minister was melting away faster than snow falling off a dyke. 
While he clung to his job, communities pulled together. An emergency rest centre was set up by Perth and Kinross Council to provide shelter for more than 600 people trapped by blocked roads, while prisoners from Castle Huntly, Noranside, Shotts and Greenock prisons were put to work clearing snow from their local areas.

Around 1,500 schools closed from Shetland to the Borders, and some 3,000 homes across Tayside and xentral Scotland were left without electricity due to “line icing”.

At one point, Aberdeen was swamped by up to 20cm of snow, with more than 50cm recorded in the Cairngorms, while the mercury plummeted to -21.2°C  at Altnaharra. 

But just as the chaos seemed to clear, more snow, ice and freezing temperatures followed.

The icy blast continued until the middle of January – at its peak around one-third of Scottish workers were unable to get to their jobs.  

It wasn’t confined just to Scotland – the rest of the UK had its fair share of snow and ice leaving retailers facing a £22 million black hole as shoppers stayed at home. There were massive costs to airlines grounded by the weather and a New Year headache for councils left with potholes and an eye-watering bill for grit. 

The end-of-year snow and ice was said to have been the worst for 40 years. Of course, the Beast from the East a few years later would introduce us to thundersnow and a whole different kind of winter storm. 

But for Stewart Stevenson, the MSP for Banff and Buchan, it would be a slippery slope that refused to melt away. 

His comments that the Scottish Government’s response to the crisis had been “first class” did not warm the nation’s frozen heart. Even his apology to Holyrood left Met Office officials enraged when he seemed to blame them for failing to give adequate weather warnings. 

Further accusations that he had ignored advice issued months earlier on how to prevent winter travel chaos, such as ordering trucks into lay-bys to prevent routes being blocked by jack-knifed vehicles, were the final straw. 

Within a week the MSP for Banff and Buchan was gone and Keith Brown, a former Marine who had served in the Falklands and with a reputation for action, was in the driving seat.

He was kept busy – the snow, ice and storms bashed the country until mid-January, and then returned in March, bringing more travel disruption and up to 60cm of fresh snow in the Cairngorms.

Meanwhile, Stevenson wasn’t left out in the cold for too long. Within months he landed new job – in charge of climate change policy.