Blizzards, heavy rain and winds of more than 90mph caused misery across the north-east yesterday.
Communities across the region were faced with power cuts, school closures and major traffic disruption at Storm Gertrude swept in.
About 2,000 homes in areas including Aboyne, Peterculter, Portsoy, Catterline and Ellon were left without electricity.
The power cuts are thought to have been caused by lines being blown down or his by toppling trees.
Auchnagatt, Easterfield, Finzean, Forgue, and Kincardine O’Neil schools were closed to both staff and pupils due to complete power outages in the areas, and Largue School was closed to pupils.
Meanwhile, motorists across the north-east were faced with severe delays, as fallen trees and wind-related accidents resulted in traffic chaos on roads all over the region.
The A96 Aberdeen-Inverness road just south of Huntly was shut for a number of hours close to Battlehill after gales blew over a lorry, which was then hit by a car.
Earlier in the morning, drivers were forced to swerve to avoid a trampoline bouncing about on the A90 close to the Newtonhill flyover after it was blown out of a garden and on to the dual carriageway.
Train travellers were also faced with major delays because of the extreme weather.
Services running from Glasgow to Aberdeen were held up, and trains heading from Edinburgh and Glasgow to Inverness were also affected.
Pilots also faced difficulty overcoming strong cross winds when landing and departing from Aberdeen Airport.
Many flights were delayed or cancelled for safety reasons, especially for aircraft travelling to Shetland, where the Met Office had issued a red warning – the highest possible – for extreme winds, with the strongest gust hitting 105mph.
Ferries travelling north were also faced with major delays.
Meanwhile, heavy rain and high river levels resulted in widespread flooding across the north-east, particularly around the River Spey.
By the afternoon the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) had issued a total of 15 flood warnings and 15 flood alerts across the country, with eight in total across Findhorn, Nairn, Moray and Speyside, and one along the coastline between Fraserburgh and Rosehearty due to the dangers of high tides.
And as the evening went on, the high winds and rain gave way to blizzards, as heavy snowfall swept across the region, with temperatures dipping below freezing across the north-east, with the lowest temperature of -3 recorded in Braemar.
But every cloud has a silver living, and Storm Gertrude brought one of the most beautifully-lined clouds possible to residents living in southern Aberdeenshire early yesterday morning in the form of a rare and spectacular meteorological phenomenon.
Residents in Stonehaven glancing up before sunrise were treated to the sight of a nacreous, or mother-of-pearl cloud, a rainbow-coloured formation which only appears when weather conditions are just right.