Two yellow weather warnings issued for snow, thunder and strong winds in Scotland

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Two weather alerts have been issued for large areas of Scotland amid warnings of ‘thundersnow’.

The Met Office issued a yellow weather warning for snow and lightning across the majority of the mainland, which comes into force at 5pm on Wednesday and is set to last until 8pm on Thursday.

A separate yellow warning for wind has been issued for parts of Tayside, Perth and Kinross, Fife, Edinburgh, the Lothians and the Scottish Borders until 6pm on Wednesday.

The Met Office warned there was a ‘small chance of injuries and danger to life’ due to lightning strikes, with the potential for rural communities to be cut off and power lines and mobile signals affected by the weather.

Public transport may be impacted during the stormy conditions, with motorists urged to take care on roads.

STV meteorologist Sean Batty said Scots could see unusual ‘thundersnow’ showers over the next 24 hours, which occurs when very cold air creates large clouds which can bring thundery downpours.

However the colder air turns the rain into snow showers, which may hit most of the mainland with up to 20cm of snow expected in higher areas.

Insight by Sean Batty

It seems like there’s not a day goes by just now without some sort of weather warning, but this time something a bit different – ​​thunder and snow.

Very cold air will move in on Wednesday evening which will allow for very unstable air, which basically just means large clouds can bubble up – known as cumulonimbus clouds. These clouds can bring thundery downpours, but because these are in the colder air, a lot of what falls on the mainland on Wednesday night will be of snow.

Most of these wintry showers will affect the north, west and central areas where they will be particularly frequent. Across the Northern Isles and Hebrides most of the showers will be a mix of rain and sleet, but over the mainland of Scotland these will fall as snow to low levels. This means that some spots in the Highlands, Argyll, Stirlingshire, Perthshire, Fife, Renfrewshire, Dunbartonshire, Glasgow and North Lanarkshire could wake up to a few centimetres of snow on Thursday morning along with ice. As much as 15 to 20cm is possible over higher levels, and along with strong winds there will be blizzards and drifting of lying snow.

Winds will be gusty, especially in passing showers which will make for horrible driving conditions during snow showers on the higher parts of the A85, A82, M8, M77 and M74. Gusts will reach 40-50mph, but perhaps as high as 60mph along the exposed parts of the west coast and Hebrides.

By Friday the weather will be a lot quieter, but still rather chilly before a recovery in temperatures on Saturday as the wind starts to pick up again with some rain in the west.

The weather is set to remain in this unsettled phase into next week with further spells of strong winds, rain, and occasional wintry conditions.

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