On the tail of the ‘weather bomb’ battering Scotland
We were not alone. Others could not quite believe anyone would put to sea in this, today.
So on the point just outside Oban a freelance cameraman joins us as we watched the bright red, Norwegian-flagged fishing vessel nose out gently from Oban harbour.
Heading N to Glencoe as the weatherbomb arrives https://t.co/6IIxDs1FXO
— alex thomson (@alextomo) December 10, 2014
“Ah wudnae do that for any amount of fish or money – not today,” said the man walking past who looked like he’d seen a creel or two in his time.
No other vessel moved from Oban harbour today. CalMac ferries large and small berthed for the duration:
“How long’s a piece of string?” said a trucker bound for Barra in the Western Isles when I wondered how long this might last. There, 17,000 began today without power and every school and nursery is shut.
The forlorn Scotrail two carriage train sits at the terminus by Oban harbour. The Glasgow Queen Street to Oban service is off until further notice like the precarious coastal route from Glasgow along the pounded Ayrshire Coast to the south.
If you want Ardrossan today – you’re on a bus not a train.
Deceptively calm waters of Oban’s sheltered dock https://t.co/Q9G8YWnH27
— alex thomson (@alextomo) December 10, 2014
Periodically the land goes white around Oban as intense, stinging heavy hail showers hiss in from the Atlantic. The windchill bites but In truth the air is not that cold. Not yet.
That is to come and inland in Glencoe you get a taster. Heavy snow developing into blizzards is forecast and above a thousand feet the hills and glens are white from Glencoe east to the Cairgorms – with over 100mph wind speeds recorded at summits.
Come Friday meteorologists say a band of northerly air will be dragged south by the passing super depression and the first major snow event of the winter is due across Scotland at least.
Several seasonal centimetres forecast even across the Central Belt from Glasgow to Edinburgh on Friday – the Border fells were already white as my train pulled north from Carlisle this morning.
The explosive ‘cyclogenesis’ or ‘weather bomb’ may be detonating – but it will leave winter in its wake.
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