Weather: Summer storms bring chaos to Scotland

Rescue teams wade through floodwater on the streets of Alyth, in Perthshire. Picture: Hemedia

Cars were swept along the street in Alyth, Perthshire after the Alyth Burn burst its banks flooding homes and businesses on Thursday night.

The village hall has since been opened as a refuge for the 100 people who have been affected by the floods.

Heavy rain also forced the suspension of play for several hours at the 144th Open Championship in St Andrews, Fife.

Groundsmen sweep water from the fairway at St Andrews. Picture: Getty

Roy Dunsire, from the Scottish Fire Rescue Service, said: “It was a massive surge of water coming through the town centre of Alyth. So much so that the surge of water was picking up cars and anything else in its path and lifting them up and taking them away.

“There were about 100 properties that were affected by this massive surge of water.”

He added: “In my 23-year career I have never seen anything like this at all. The power of this water was incredible.”

In total the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) issued 17 flood warnings and five flood alerts as Scotland’s summer turned wet and wild.

The streets of Alyth after the burn burst its banks. Picture: Hemedia

Drivers were warned to take extra caution due to surface water causing problems on major routes along the east coast and Glasgow areas.

Debris was strewn over the road on the A822 to the A9 at Dunkeld and commuters were stuck in slow-moving traffic on the Forth Road Bridge.

In Aberdeen, the entrance to a car park was flooded in the Beach Boulevard area where cars were stuck following flash flooding last week.

At the Open, organisers suspended proceedings around ten minutes after the first players teed off at 6.32am as the heavens opened.

Greens, fairways and bunkers were flooded and an army of greenkeepers worked to clear the standing water, with play resuming at about 10am.

A total of 14mm of rain fell at Leuchars near St Andrews between 6pm on Thursday and 6am on Friday.

Forecasters have warned that wind and rain during the night at St Andrews could result in further delays this morning, with the possibility of play then being delayed reducing into tomorrow.

Between 10 to 30 millimetres of rain fell across the east of the country on Thursday overnight with Perthshire one of the worst areas affected.

A popular Highland games scheduled to take place this weekend in Aberdeenshire has since been cancelled as a result of the weather.

Organisers of Stonehaven Highland Games said they had taken the “painful decision” to cancel tomorrow’s events due to four inches of flood water covering the playing field where it was supposed to take place.

Chairman of the games committee Roger Barnett said: “It has really been a very, very difficult decision because of all the things that are going on in the games this year as well.

“I am pretty gutted, but we had to make the decision because we had to think of our partners and the playing fields itself.

“There is four inches of water on the field. It would absolutely ruin the field and we can’t afford to do that.”

A Met Office yellow “be aware” warning still covers the Central, Tayside and Fife, Grampian, Highlands, Western Isles and Strathclyde regions.

The warning, which is valid until 1pm today, says “persistent and sometimes rather heavy rain will develop again across parts of western Scotland on Friday evening, lasting into the first part of Saturday.”

Scotland is expected to see a mixture of rain and sunny spells throughout the beginning of next week.

Met Office spokesperson Laura Young, said: “Scotland as a whole is going to see quite a bit of rain and we do have a weather warning for gale force winds and rain in the east. Total rainfall will be 30-40mm, but higher ground could receive more than 80mm over a 24-hour period.

“This is all as a result of a low pressure system.”