This past 48 hours of truely severe winter weather may go down as the worst to impact the UK in over 30 years with people trapped in homes by towering snow drifts generated by bitter 50-60 mph winds. It was the rare combination of a major 1 foot snowfall combined with brutal gale-force southeast winds across Southwest Scotland and Northwest England which brought many to a standstill, trapping hundreds in cars and lorries overnight on impassable roads across Cumbria and Dumfries and Galloway. Many roads became blocked by anywhere from 3-5 foot drifts to as much as 15 feet across parts of Arran and Cumbria with unconfirmed reports of 24 feet.

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I headed out of my depot at 4.20am Saturday morning and headed down to Dumfries and Galloway. Even down as far as Moffat there was little snow and even by the time I reached Dumfries, while roads had snow cover, it wasn’t too bad. It wasn’t until I headed up over higher ground on the A711 Dumfries to Dalbeattie road where I got a quick sense of how series the situation was. Near to the village of Bees Wing, a higher, remote stretch southwest of Dumfries, there was about a foot of snow on the ground but beyond trees, a gale-force wind had generated 3-6 foot drifts and these were being blown across the road. I noticed no other vehicles on this road and once I reached Bees Wing, I saw people literally digging themselves out of homes. Drifts covered half the road while about 6 inches of snow covered the other half. I crept on a little further and realised I wasn’t going to get much further. The road was in fact closed further up.

I stopped and aided a Kingsmill driver, trying to get him out. He was stuck.

I was on my way to Stranraer but with people further along the A75 trapped in vehicles overnight due to massive drifts covering the road, I ended up having to turn back even before reaching Dalbeattie where the road was impassible, it was only just passible in Bees Wing. These were certainly some of the worst conditions I have ever experienced. I’ve never heard of the main A75 frieght trunk road (used heavily by lorries) being impassable in multiple sections as well as Stranraer being cut off from the rest of the country. All roads in and out were closed due to drifts.

These severe conditions have made particular impact on Arran and Kintyre with deep snow and severe gales which have all but cut off entire communities and the main A83 linking Kintyre with the rest of Scotland remains blocked. Other hard hit areas included the North Ayrshire coast at Largs and Skelmorlie. The A711 near Dalbeattie and A714 between Newton Stewart and Girvan in Dumfries and Galloway remain closed as well as roads up towards Largs. Thousands lost power across the Southwest as well as on Arran and the Kintyre Penninsula. A rare part of the country you don’t expect to be hit by such conditions.

While hundreds spent the night in vehicles with countless roads closed across Western Scotland, it was just as bad if not worse across Cumbria, Lancashire, Derbyshire and into North Wales with multiple roads also blocked by snow drifts.

Despite the snow ending, howling winds are continuing to keep roads blocked some 48 hours after being forced to close and the combination of wind, snow, and January-like temperatures of 0 to 2C is proving life difficult for most.

Probably the most photographed stretch from all this was the clogged A959 route near Bootle, Cumbria where people had to get rescued after entire cars and even lorries became buried by 15 foot drifts.

Here was the scene in Northwest Lancashire.

As for the upcoming week, don’t expect any sort of warm up. It remains bitter with potential severe frosts at night. This looks most certainly to be our coldest March in half a century!

Will have a full medium range forecast shortly, stay tuned!

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