More Words On The Weather

When it was first talked-about, I never imagined climate change and global warming would happen quickly enough to have any affect on my life. But - rather suddenly, and all over the world - people are now beginning to realise that climate change really is here already.

In the UK, we are becoming more and more used to hearing news and weather reports of record temperatures (both highs and lows), of gales, storms, floods and other weather events that are still often described as 'extreme'. The recent 'extreme' heatwave affecting the south east of England was one of several such events in the last decade or two. There is every likelihood that such events will soon become the norm rather than the exception.

Here on Skye - so far - we have not been experiencing any 'extremes'. Unlike the south east of England, where weather is often strongly influenced by the area's proximity to continental Europe, the weather here is largely of a maritime nature, influenced by the vast Atlantic Ocean which is our immediate neighbour. 

Skye weather is never anything at all like the weather in the south east of England. The warmest it ever gets here is many degrees lower than in the south, though the coldest is probably about the same - we might get down to -3C some winter nights. We usually get a little winter snow, but it doesn't last long. 

However, we get much stronger winds than in the south. Gales of 50mph would here be considered a stiff breeze, and occur several times a year - winter and summer... Storms reaching 70mph are not that unusual.

And we get a lot of rain. But because we have always had a lot of rain, the landscape absorbs it. The spate rivers rush with peat-brown water for a day or so after a downpour, and then everything returns to normal. Of course - the landscape here is largely natural, and has not been over-developed by acres and acres of non-absorbent tarmac and concrete....

So far - the most obvious way that climate change is affecting the NW Highlands is in a change of the seasons. Winters have become milder. Spring is drier. Summer is wetter. And the whole climate year seems to have moved on a month or so - meaning that now, in mid August, is already beginning to feel like mid-September. It is the same in the spring, when April doesn't happen until May.

We seem to be being faced with a lot of 'new normals' these days. Or am I just getting old?  But, where would I rather be in 2020 Britain? The dry and sultry south or the cool, wet and windy north west...??

Silly question...!

Roskhill, Skye, July 2020 - photo by Sue