Scotland is braced to bear the brunt of the remnants of a tropical storm bringing gales reaching 55mph to the country. 

The unsettled weather will hit the northwest of the UK on Friday, with winds peaking on Saturday. 

It comes as a result of former tropical storm Alex, the Atlantic’s first named storm this year, which killed three people in Cuba at its height.

Gale force eight winds are likely to cause disruption to ferry services.

“This weekend’s quite windy – unseasonably windy actually,” Met Office meteorologist Simon Partridge said.

“So that is a little bit odd… This time of year you don’t really get quite such vigorous low pressure systems affecting the UK.”

“Today (Friday) we could see 50mph round the west coast of Scotland, and tomorrow we could see 50 to 55mph again,” Mr Partridge said.

“It’s bringing in some quite large seas as well – I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some sort of knock-on effect on ferry services.”

Winds are expected to die down from Sunday, as the remnants of Storm Alex continue moving north.

Gusts in the South East of the UK could reach 35mph, which Mr Partridge said was “typical” because “there’s actually going to be lots of sunshine around over the next few days”.

He continued: “Without the wind it would be really nice, but the wind will take the edge off a little bit.

“So that’s a bit unfortunate, but you can’t win them all, I guess.”

Nevertheless, the South East could see temperatures of up to 24C, while central and southern England will be around 22C or 23C.