Scotland will be hit by gale-force winds and heavy rain today as another band of severe weather sweeps across the country.
Gusts of up to 80mph are expected in the west and south west as an area of low pressure moves northwards. A total of 13 flood warnings have been put in place with up to 40mm of rain predicted to fall in some places.
The Met Office has issued yellow “be aware” warnings of rain for much of the country. Tayside, where the ground is already saturated from days of wet weather, is most at risk, according to the Scottish Environment Protection Agency.
Warnings are also in place for high winds in Orkney, Shetland, the Highlands, Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire and much of the South West.
John Griffiths, a forecaster for MeteoGroup UK, said: “The low pressure system is going to drift past western parts of Scotland lingering there before going over the northern parts of the country.
“It will be directly over northern parts of Scotland today and then will start moving away from Scotland towards Norway at around 3pm.
“We can expect more heavy rain this morning with some heavy snow over the high ground. There will be gales in places but it won’t be as bad as it was a few days ago.
“Because the eye of the storm is directly over Scotland it escapes some of the fiercest winds but it will still be fairly gusty, with maximum gusts of around 80mph in western and south western areas.
“Outbreaks of rain will become more showery and will continue to ease on Saturday, with the winds decreasing quite significantly too.”
A storm on Christmas Eve caused widespread disruption that stretched into Christmas Day in some areas.
Northern parts of Scotland bore the brunt, with the highest gusts recorded at Peterhead (82mph), Inverbervie (77mph) and South Uist (75mph).
The rest of the country was buffeted by wind speeds of between 50 and 60mph. Christmas travel plans were disrupted for hundreds of people, with ferries and flights cancelled.
At the height of the storm, 3,500 homes lost electricity and just under 1,800 were still cut off from the grid on Christmas morning. Engineers worked through the day and all of the properties were reconnected by the evening.
First Minister Alex Salmond praised the efforts of those who gave up their Christmas to respond to the bad weather.