Sunday 18 January 2009

The day after the night before

That was some storm last night - the Eoropie weather station recorded winds up to 103 mph. The noise was very loud, had to turn up the sound on the TV to hear it. But there appears to have been little damage in Stornoway. On an amble round town at lunchtime, all I saw was a collection of dustbins gathered round the Edinburgh Woollen Mill shop in Francis Street, a roan pipe that appears to have fallen on someone's car in Inaclete Road (smashed numberplate was the only evidence left, car had gone). Preparations for a possible power failure were not required after all.

The streetlights on the Goat Island Causeway went out early in the evening, so I was denied a good view of the masses of seaspray that came flying in from the Minch. The storm peaked between 11 and 12, but at the moment, there is only a force 4 to 5 going with snowshowers.

9 comments:

  1. We were led to expect strong winds in Orkney last night but they did not materialise (thank goodness). It was windy but nothing out of the ordinary, certainly not gale F8.

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  2. It certainly felt like Force 8 here! A mass concrete block, which sat on a bin lid for years, blew off and smashed the Cold Frame of Delight. As the frame was built to fit the old sliding window that was the glass, it's going to be interesting replacing it!
    Do the wheelie bins normally shop at the EWM? There's sophisticated...or maybe just a comment on the contents...

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  3. Think it was a little exaggerated ... there've been worse winds than that over the past few months ...

    I lost the top of my water-butt, and my poor little brown duck lost her duckhouse, which when I came to put it back in its correct place contained four perfect eggs ... absolutely stone-cold ... Shame ...

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  4. Good to know that weverybody seems to be still here, including notorious Nic!

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  5. No, Soaplady, this was the worst storm since the January 2005 hurricane. We did have two force 11 storms earlier in the winter, but none as severe as this one.

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  6. really arnish ...? well ... you never can tell ...
    perhaps the 2005 one just *felt* worse because it seemed to go on longer, and the electricity was out for many hours more for some people) ... and, of course, people lost their lives ...

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  7. Sounded like an express train going past my house, the street lamp shorted giving massive green bursts of light until the transformer station packed in and we had to get the old tilly lamp out. Cooking a meal is a bit of a problem when you are all-electric in a power cut. Sixteen hours after the power went off, good old Hydro sent a van to ask if we had power!!!!. Our four-ex friend from Achmore drove past in his 4x4 to inspect the damage, giving regal waves to one and all. Made my day.

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  8. :lol:Its the simple things in Liff that give the most pleasure!
    Sixteen years in an all-electric hoose and we still occasionally curse the neighbour who had it built without so much as a chimney! Not within his hearing of course...

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  9. Well point (Aird) did hit the 12's on the BFS, a little hair raising to say. But thank goodness apart from the odd bins around everyone seemed to be secure...............I was very supprised not to see the power off though.

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