High winds and blizzards brought disruption to Scotland as experts warned worse is to come.
Drifting snow closed a large part of the A9 in Highland Perthshire. The snow gates at Blair Atholl and Trinafour were closed in late afternoon but reopened shortly after 6pm.
Drivers heading south on the A90 in late afternoon faced heavy traffic between Tealing and Dundee due to snow and strong winds. In the city, long tailbacks built up on Forfar Road as traffic headed for Kingsway.
The AA said it had been called out to around 1,200 breakdowns across Scotland, compared with around 900 to 950 on a normal Friday.
Meanwhile, three hillwalkers were rescued after an avalanche in the Cairngorms. They are said to have suffered only minor injuries.
Power supplies in the west of Scotland were also disrupted, especially on the Isle of Arran and in parts of Argyll, Ayrshire and Dumfries and Galloway. SSE said the whole of Arran lost power, affecting 10,000 homes and businesses.
Northern Ireland was badly hit. The World Cup qualifying football match against Russia was cancelled and almost 100,000 homes and businesses lost electricity.
Around 1,500 homes in Cumbria were without power last night as an amber weather alert was issued for the north of England.
The first falls of snow came in October and are continuing almost to Easter meaning we have endured a winter lasting close to six months.
The lingering cold conditions have led to some claims that the UK is running out of gas, with only two days’ worth of fuel left in reserve, and sparked fears of a massive hike in prices.
However, both the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and Prime Minister David Cameron denied there is any risk of gas supplies running out.
A DECC spokeswoman said: “Gas storage would never be the sole source of gas meeting our needs, so it is misleading to talk purely about how many days’ supply is in storage.”
She added that, while half of the nation’s gas needs were supplied from the North Sea, there were also pipelines from Norway and elsewhere in Europe, shipments of liquefied natural gas and storage.