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Badenoch & Strathspey to be subject to five more days of Met Office yellow warnings for snow after it extended its alerts for the Highlands


By Philip Murray

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The area covered by the 60-hour long warning period, which runs on Friday, Saturday and the first half of Sunday, covers most of mainland Scotland. Picture: Met Office.
The area covered by the 60-hour long warning period, which runs on Friday, Saturday and the first half of Sunday, covers most of mainland Scotland. Picture: Met Office.

SNOW warnings are now in place across parts of the Highlands until Sunday afternoon – after the Met Office revised and extended existing warnings.

The areas covered by the existing alerts have also been extended to cover a wider area, amid forecasts for “significant” snow in many parts of the north.

An active yellow warning for snow and ice, which extends into parts of Badenoch and Strathspey from the south, is expected to remain in force until midnight tonight, when it will be immediately followed by a 48-hour long snow warning covering an area as far north as the Slochd summit and Tomatin.

And that latter warning will itself be immediately superseded on Friday morning by a 60-hour long alert covering most of the Highlands bar Lochaber, western Ross-shire coasts, and Sutherland’s western and northern beaches. This replaces and extends upon an earlier 54-hour warning, which was originally due to run from Thursday into Saturday.

As much as 40cm of snow could fall in parts of the Highlands on Wednesday and Thursday, with up to a further 30cm – accompanied by blizzards and “significant drifting of snow” – predicted for the alert covering Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Describing tomorrow’s snow alert, a Met Office spokesman said: “Further spells of snow, heavy at times, will continue to affect parts of northern England and Scotland during Wednesday and Thursday. Snow is most likely to fall on higher ground, mainly above 200 to 300 metres, but also to lower ground in the north of the areas later.

The snow alert that will run throughout all of Wednesday and Thursday, borders the Monadhliadh Mountains and extends as far north as the likes of Tomatin and the Slochd Summit. Picture: Met Office.
The snow alert that will run throughout all of Wednesday and Thursday, borders the Monadhliadh Mountains and extends as far north as the likes of Tomatin and the Slochd Summit. Picture: Met Office.

“Significant accumulations of 10 to 20 centimetres are possible, perhaps as much as 40cm across the Grampians.

“This amount of snow could bring disruption to travel across trans-Pennines routes and the higher roads across the Southern Uplands and Grampians.”

And, moving onto the 60-hour alert heading into the weekend, they added: “An area of heavy rain and snow over Scotland will slowly move south over the weekend, bringing further snow accumulations, firstly over high ground in the north, but increasingly to low levels through Saturday and into Sunday. A further 20 to 30cm may fall above 200m, with five to 10, perhaps locally 20cm falling even to low levels as we move into the weekend.

“Strong winds could lead to significant drifting of snow and temporary blizzard conditions.”

The latest warnings come after temperatures once again plummeted in the Highlands overnight.

The coldest Highland spot was Carrbridge, according to Lee Schofield of Highland Weather (@highlandweather on Twitter, and Highlands and Islands Weather on Facebook). The mercury there fell to -12.6C - although the temperature was even colder in western Aberdeenshire, where an icy -15.7C was recorded at Corgarff.

Elsewhere in the Highlands, Altnaharra in Sutherland fell as low as -12.1C, while Kinbrace dropped to -10.6C.

Related news: Some drifting snow across Strathspey roads


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