Drivers face flood chaos as March ends in a deluge

SCOTLAND will end this month in the teeth of a storm, with dozens of flood alerts in place across the country.

Ferry timetables on the West Coast will be disrupted over the next few days as winds of up to 60mph sweep in from the Atlantic.

On the first day of British Summer Time, drivers yesterday faced difficult conditions on the roads and restrictions were placed on a number of bridges, including the Kessock, Skye and Forth Road bridges.

A grim weather forecast forced Transport Scotland to announce the closure of the A83 at the Rest and Be Thankful in Argyll, which has been plagued by landslides since last summer.

Since yesterday morning, all traffic has been diverted onto the relief Old Military Road at the bottom of Glen Croe. It will be Wednesday morning before a safety inspection will conclude if it is safe to reopen the main road. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency has imposed 37 flood alerts and warnings, from the Churchill Barriers in the Orkney Islands in the north to Dumfries and the Solway Coast in the south.

A Met Office yellow ‘be aware’ rain warning was upgraded yesterday in the expectation that the impact of the downpours may be greater than first thought.

Covering a wide area of West and Central Scotland, it is now expected that fast-flowing water could create a ‘danger to life’. The warning is now in place until 6pm tomorrow for areas including Central, Tayside and Fife, the Highlands and Islands, Argyll and Bute and West Dunbartonshire.

The warning is predicting that up to four inches (100mm) of rain could fall quite widely, with as much as 10 inches (250mm) on higher ground.

It is thought some homes and businesses could be flooded, transport services delayed and drivers will face heavy spray and flooding on the roads.