Storm Eva is causing Christmas travel chaos across the Highlands and Islands as people began a long journey home for the festive season.
Travellers trying to get to or from the islands today were scuppered as almost all ferry services were disrupted in some way.
And things are set to get worse this afternoon as ferry operators Calmac were forced to announce a radically altered timetable for today in an attempt to beat the weather.
The Met Office has issued a yellow “be aware” warning for wind which is in force until 3pm this afternoon covering the west coast of the mainland, the Western Isles, Shetland and Orkney.
A spokesman for the agency said that gusts of 80mph were expected to hit the Western Isles, while warning that 60-70mph winds would be widespread across exposed western and northern areas.
A further warning for rain is also in place and is due to expire at 8am this morning.
The bad weather brought widespread disruption yesterday on one of the busiest travelling days of the year, with 23 out of CalMac’s 26 west coast routes either cancelled or disrupted yesterday.
Northlink services to Orkney and Shetland were also running an altered service yesterday because of stormy conditions.
CalMac have made major changes to their timetable for today’s sailings to try and take advantage of “weather windows” to take passengers and supplies to and from the islands tomorrow.
The operator’s director of operations Drew Collier said: “We have pulled out all the stops to ensure people travelling to these destinations can get home to their friends and family in time for the celebrations.
“Storm Eva brings significant weather challenges for us over the next few days and makes operating any sort of service difficult, but we are committed to getting our customers where they want to go and will look at all options to achieve this.
“However, weather does change and I would urge everyone planning to travel on these revised services, and to all our destinations, to continue to monitor our website and social media platforms for the very latest information before they set off.”
Meanwhile a small number of residents on the remote Shetland island of Foula, including elderly people and a family with young children, are facing Christmas without water after supplies were cut in the south of the island.
Scottish Water were alerted to the problem in at least four households in the area on Tuesday but were unable to fly in engineers because of the weather
One resident affected, Martin Smith, said he had lost water on Monday night.
He is managing to top up bottles of water by going elsewhere on the island which as a population of around 30.
“It’s a rather unhappy situation – there’s not a drop of water,” he said
“There’s not a great stock of bottled water on the island.
“But since the whole island isn’t affected, one can go north to refill bottles from folk who have water.”
Scottish Water apologised on Wednesday morning and added: “We had arranged to fly additional resources into Foula today in an effort to restore supplies to customers as quickly as possible.
“Unfortunately, due to the poor weather forecast, the flight has been cancelled.
“In the meantime, using existing resources on the island we are focused on restoring supplies to the small number of affected customers as quickly as possible.”
The Scottish Government urged people to check before they travel.
Transport minister Derek Mackay said: “The Christmas getaway is getting underway and we want everyone to reach their destinations safely.
“The Met Office is warning of the potential for stormy weather across tonight and tomorrow and the trunk road operating companies remain on alert and ready to do all they can to mitigate the impact of conditions where required.
“Our travel planning services are more popular than ever and I would urge anyone making a journey on the trunk road network to check the Traffic Scotland twitter feed or website before they set off on their journey.”