Elected Member Briefing Note - Weather Update, 10am, 23 January 2026

About this Briefing Note

Report by: Stefan Morkis, Team Leader, Communications

Date: 23 January 2026

Subject: Weather update - 10am, Friday 23 January 2026

Details

Purpose

To provide an update on the response to the ongoing heavy rain and snow in Perth and Kinross.

Briefing Information

The Met Office's Amber Warning for Perth and Kinross ended at 6pm on Thursday but a yellow weather warning for rain remains in place into Saturday.

A further meeting of the Incident Management Team took place at 9am to review conditions overnight and identify possible areas of concern.

Perth Flood Scheme

Due to falling water levels in the Tay and a drop in the water flow, flood barriers on the Queen's Bridge are being removed this morning. The bridge is expected to re-open to traffic around 10.30am.

Flood gates at Perth Harbour were opened around 7.30am allowing full access to the Harbour and Lower Friarton. However, it may be necessary to close these again on Saturday afternoon should water levels rise again in line with current predictions.

Other floodgates currently remain closed and reopenings will take place after a review of safety based on flow information and visual inspections.

Community reassurance

The Community Support and Enforcement Team are continuing to keep in touch with community resilience groups, and will have teams available overnight on call if additional action is needed. Reassurance visits to residents in Commercial Street, Rose Terrace and Barossa Street were carried out on Thursday with information provided. There are no additional requests for support but further visits will be made on Friday.

Council phone lines switched to out of hours operations from 5pm as usual. Aberdeen City Council only received six calls overnight.

Our Structures Team is beginning inspections today to check for any possible damage to bridges in Perth and Kinross

Front line teams will start to move from response to recovery including identifying and carrying out any necessary clear up.

The Roads Maintenance team are also now dealing with snowfall in the A93 area with resources deployed in accordance with the approved winter maintenance procedure.

Weather-related road closures

Currently the following roads are closed due to the weather conditions:

• A923 Blairgowrie to Coupar Angus Road - Flooding
• B954 Alyth to Meigle - Flooding
• A924 Bridge of Cally to Kirkmichael Road at Ballintuim - Flooding
• C423 New Alyth to Aberbothrie Road - Flooding
• B950 at junction with A93 at Bridge of Cally - Flooding
• B898 at Dalguise - Flooding
• A923 at Butterstone - Flooding
• C455 South Comrie to Crieff Road A984 between A93 Meikleour crossroads and A923 Bendochy - Flooding

The A827 Ballinluig to Pitnacree Bridge is passable with care, and the A93 Perth to Blairgowrie Road (Cargill Bridge). The A93 at Blairgowrie is clear but the area is currently experiencing heavy snow.

Waste collections

Flooding has prevented collections in some areas.

These include an area between the A926 Alyth road and the A94 Forfar Road, and B954 Alyth to Meigle. We will look to make collections once the flooding has receded. Anything we cannot collect will be picked up on the next uplift, with a reasonable amount of excess.

In Kinross, Lendrick Muir to Naemoor Road was not collected on Thursday. If collections cannot take place over the weekend they will be completed on Monday.

School closures

Four schools have had to close because of the weather:

• Blairgowrie High School (due to local road issues)
• Coupar Angus Primary School (due to roof repairs)
• Kirkmichael Primary School (due to access road issues)
• Glenlyon Primary School (due to impact of the weather)

It is expected all will be able to re-open on Monday.