Scotland weather: Met Office issues yellow warning for thunderstorms and heavy rain across Scotland

The Met Office yellow warning covers the country apart from Shetland and is in place until midnight on Friday.

Forecasters said there is a small chance homes and businesses could flood, while storms and lightning strikes could cause travel disruption.

Many people took to social media to describe hearing thunder and seeing lightning in the Edinburgh area and further north in the early hours of Friday morning.

One described an “absolutely tremendous storm over Edinburgh” while another said it was “spectacular”.

Firefighters were called to two dwelling fires in the early hours but it is not known if they were related to the storm.

They were called to a fire in Dalkeith, Midlothian, at 3.24am and to one in Aberlady, East Lothian, at 3.45am and extinguished both blazes with no reports of any injuries.

The stormy weather comes after days of hot and dry weather.

Temperatures reached a high of 31.2C at Threave in Dumfries and Galloway on Thursday, according to Met Office data, while Drumalbin in South Lanarkshire and Auchencruive in South Ayrshire also hit the 30C mark.

The record June temperature for Scotland is 32.3C, which was recorded at Ochtertyre in Perthshire on June 18 1893.

However, the weather conditions have now changed and people have been warned to expect wet weather.

The Met Office warning says: “Spells of heavy rain and thunderstorms initially over north-west Scotland are likely to become more widespread during Friday morning.

“Further thunderstorms and spells of heavy rain are possible in the afternoon before becoming confined to more northern areas of Scotland later in the day.

“Rainfall amounts will be highly variable but narrow corridors of 20-30mm falling in one hour and potentially 30-50mm in three hours is possible. Frequent lightning, large hail (2-4cm diameter) and locally gusty winds with stronger storms.”

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) has issued 18 flood alerts and one flood warning.