Travel chaos continues as heavy snow blasts through Scotland amid Met Office weather warning

Travellers have been warned to expect further chaos as Scots awaken to snowy scenes amid yellow weather warning.

The Met Office has issued a number of yellow weather warnings for snow, ice and rain covering the majority of Scotland.

A warning for snow and rain is in place for southern parts of Scotland from 8am on Saturday until 3pm covering Dumfries and Galloway, Ayrshire and the Scottish Borders.

Central and northern parts of Scotland have a longer stretch of treacherous conditions with a yellow warning for snow and rain in place from 8am on Saturday until midnight.

The Highlands also have a yellow weather warning for ice in place until 10am on Saturday as the snow is expected to turn to slush throughout the morning.

The Met Office has warned that road delays are expected to continue with the likelihood of stranded vehicles and passengers.

The agency also warned that the delays will also affect rail and air travel throughout the duration of the warning.

The warnings come as many Scots are still recovering from Storm Gerrit, after thousands of homes were left without power amid heavy winds and driving rain.

Insight Philip Petrie STV weather presenter

Today we have a deep area of low pressure out to the west moving towards us, and pushing in a frontal system. It is this frontal system that brings with it rain, but as we can see at the moment, as that rain is hitting the very cold air above us at the moment, it will be falling as snow, even down to lower levels.
1-3cm is expected widely, with 5-10cm possible on higher levels, so routes such as the A9 and the A82 could once again face some disruption due to the snow.

The snow will increasingly turn to rain after an hour or so, as it works its way north and eastwards, but along with the rain and snow we also have some quite tightly packed isobars so the winds will be quite strong too.

Blizzard conditions along with the snow on higher routes, that have already seen a lot of chaos on Wednesday thanks to Storm Gerrit, but for much of the north east around Aberdeenshire, Moray, Caithness and Sutherland and the Northern Isles it will stay dry until night.

Overnight that band of rain will work it’s way slowly across Orkney and Shetland where it will sit for much of Hogmanay as it comes up against a blocking area of high pressure, so it has nowhere to go. It won’t be until New Year’s Day itself that the rain will ease, turning more showery, but for many a largely fine, dry, bright 1st of the year with only one or two showers.