Snowfall and sledges? That’ll be spring then!
SCOTLAND was split in two yesterday as one half of the country shivered in the snow while the other basked in spring sunshine.
Heavy snow created dangerous driving conditions across Inverness-shire and in Aberdeenshire, where a police car went off the A947 during a white-out near Fyvie.
Yet in the sunny Central Belt, families celebrated the end of a sparkling Easter weekend.
Greg Dewhurst of the Met Office said: ‘You could draw a line from Oban in the West to Dundee in the East. Everything above there has suffered heavy snow showers, while the South has enjoyed prolonged periods of sunshine.’
The forecast suggests somewhere in the North will see -10C this morning as Arctic air continues to sweep in.
At Strathpeffer Golf Course in Easter Ross, greenkeeper Donald Krzyzanowski stood in the snow and said: ‘What a difference a day makes. We had a monthly medal played at the weekend and the weather was fantastic.’
The A9 was closed at Latheron in Caithness after a lorry crashed in snow, and the A85 in Argyll was shut between Dunbeg and Connel after a tree fell over the carriageway in strong winds. Also in Argyll, an experiment began on the landslide-prone A83 at the Rest and Be Thankful to see if the main route can remain open overnight following months of closures.
Eddie Ross, BEAR Scotland’s North West Representative, said: ‘The Old Military Road diversion will remain on standby.’
Sailings between Orkney and Shetland and the mainland were cancelled due to high winds and travellers were warned services today could also be disrupted.
In Shetland yesterday morning, two buses careered off the road in snow near Sandwick. No passengers were on either vehicle, both owned by R Robertson and Son, and neither driver was injured. Company owner Sonia Robertson said: ‘It shows the ferociousness here of Mother Nature. We have got ridiculously high winds.’
In Aberdeenshire, no one was injured when a police car crashed into a tree on the A947 between Fyvie and Oldmeldrum yesterday morning, and a taxi driver and his passenger escaped unscathed when a large tree crashed onto the vehicle’s roof in Rosemount, Aberdeen in the afternoon.
Meanwhile, in the sunny south, families queued for ice creams at The Boathouse Café in Rouken Glen Park, in Giffnock, East Renfrewshire, where Craig Davison, 32, and Roisain McAteer, 27, took two-year-old Quinn to feed the ducks.
Mr Davison, a construction worker from King’s Park, Glasgow, said: ‘I heard they have snow up north. That’s Scotland for you.’