Thousands Still Lack Power

Thousands of people are starting a fourth day without electricity as further high winds, heavy rain and snow are set to bring continued disruption to Scotland's transport and power networks.

More than 100,000 homes lost power at the height of the problems and engineers worked through treacherous'' conditions to try to reconnect customers in the north of Scotland.

The weather also contributed to a spate of accidents. Two men were swept out to sea at Brighton beach in gale force conditions while two teenagers remain in hospital after the car they were travelling in crashed with a gritter in South Ayrshire.

A number of lorries were overturned on motorways in the north of England with winds widely reaching 70mph.

Plans to stabilise the cargo ship Hoegh Osaka near Southampton were also hampered by strong winds with a salvage team called off on Saturday.

New Met Office yellow be prepared'' warnings are in place for almost the whole of the UK today with further high winds and rain due.

Gusts of 50 to 70 mph will be widespread with 90 mph winds in the very north and islands of Scotland.

Met Office forecaster Alex Burkill said: The period of wet weather is continuing through the night, particularly over Northern Ireland and Scotland as it pushes in from the west.

Through Monday the rain should move south eastwards and it's likely to linger along the south and south east with some heavy bursts until Tuesday.

For the parts worst affected over the weekend it should be much brighter but also colder and the odd winter shower will remain with temperatures struggling around 5 or 6C.''

Some homes around Inverness, Dingwall, Wick and the Western Isles have been without power since Friday. All schools in the Western Isles are closed today to pupils, the council has said.

Scottish and Southern Energy has been working with volunteers from the Red Cross to reach vulnerable customers, providing them with hot food and drinks.

Anne Eadie, co-ordinating the Red Cross emergency response, said: Every one of our volunteers in Northern Scotland was ready to do whatever was needed to help make things easier for as many people as possible. Our biggest priority was to make sure that people identified as vulnerable - because of age, infirmity or some degree of disability - were able to withstand this crisis safely.

In some areas, water supplies were also knocked out because there was no power for the pumps which deliver it to more remote areas. Scottish Water provided supplies of bottled water, which our volunteers helped deliver.

Our response will wind down as more households are reconnected to the grid but until supplies are back to normal, our teams will continue to provide whatever help is needed.''

The ferocious gales over the weekend were stirred up by an extra-powerful jet stream in the Atlantic triggered by plunging temperatures in the United States hitting warmer air from the south.

High winds forced the cancellation of a performance at the Sunderland Empire after a statue on its roof toppled over and was left hanging from its base, 90ft up.

While in the Cairngorm mountains, three people had to be rescued after being stranded in a blizzard.

The Cairngorms Mountain Rescue team was called out to help a man who had fallen in the Northern Corries on Saturday night and early on Sunday, Braemar Mountain Rescue were sent to find two people who had been stranded overnight after heavy snowfall and equipment failure in the central Cairngorms.

All three were found safely with the injured man airlifted to hospital.