Snow and gale force winds cause travel disruption

A wintry scene at Stow in the Scottish Borders on Thursday morning

Snow and gale force winds have caused travel disruption in parts of Scotland.

Police Scotland said there had been a number of weather-related collisions on the M8, M9 and M90 roads in central Scotland.

West coast ferry operator CalMac said there was disruption to services widely across its network due to the winds.

Network Rail Scotland has also warned of speed restrictions on some lines, including North Berwick to Drem and Edinburgh Waverley to Dundee.

Speed restrictions have also been imposed on services between Berwick and Haymarket West Junction until about 15:00.

Network Rail Scotland said it had chainsaw gangs on standby to deal with fallen trees.

A Met Office yellow "be aware" warning of snow was in place until 11:00 and a yellow wind warning expired at midday.

Snow was forecast to fall to up to 5cm (2in) at lower levels and to about 10cm (4in) above 400m (1,312ft) overnight in parts of central Scotland, Aberdeenshire, Argyll, Moray, the Highlands and the south of Scotland.

The Highlands were among regions to see snow on Wednesday night

Power company SSEN said its engineers were prepared for the bad weather.

A spokeswoman said: "Our infrastructure has held up well in the face of today's gale force winds, with gusts of up to 70mph recorded in the Western Isles earlier this morning.

"We're currently operating at weather warning status and will continue to monitor the forecasts to ensure that we have additional staff and resources deployed at the locations where we anticipate the weather may have the most impact."

A yellow warning of wind was also been issued for Thursday morning for the Western Isles and parts of western, central and south west Scotland.

The Met Office had forecasted gusts of 75mph for the Western Isles.